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THE 

FUN AND FIGHTING 



OF THE 



ROUGH RIDERS 



THE 

FUN AND FIGHTING 



OF THE 



ROUGH RIDERS 



BY 

TOM HALL 

Author of' When Hearts are Trumps,'' " Tales by Tom Hall,' 
•' When Lcrve is Lord:' Etc. 



» 



NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



EI 7,2-^ 



Copyright, 1899, 
By FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY. 



A U Rightt Rt*«rved. 
TWO COPIES HECEIVED. 



FIRbT COPY. 






TO 

THE MEMORY OF 

CAPTAINS 
ALLYN K. CAPRON 

AND 

WILLIAM O. O'NEILL, 

1ST UNITED STATES VOLUNTEER 
CAVALRY. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

Preface iii 

CHAPTER I. 
The Gathering of the Clans i 

CHAPTER II. 
The Baptism of Discipline 15 

CHAPTER III. 
Rough Life in Camp Wood 26 

CHAPTER IV. 
Outfitting 36 

CHAPTER V. 
Drilling 45 

CHAPTER VI. 
Waiting 56 

CHAPTER VIL 
En Route to Tampa 65 

CHAPTER VIII. 
In Camp at Tampa 77 

CHAPTER IX. 

En Route to Cuba 92 

i 



ii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER X. ,ACB 

On Cuban Soil io8 

CHAPTER XI. 
On the Road to Siboney lao 

CHAPTER XII. 
Guasiraas I7i 

CHAPTER XIII. 
In Camp on a Battlefield 148 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Between Battles i6i 

CHAPTER XV. 
On to San Juan 17^ 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Battle of San Juan ig* 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Siege of Santiago i^n 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Siege of Santiago (Continued) 213 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Fall of Santiago 226 

CHAPTER XX. 
On a Horror Ship 236 



PREFACE 



It is not the intention of the author to write a 
panegyric upon the brief but brilliant career of 
the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, better 
known as the Rough Riders. The regiment needs 
none. Hence the reader need not fear an inflic- 
tion of military hysteria. He can find that in 
copious quantities elsewhere — miUions of words 
of it. 

Some of the pathetic incidents in the regiment's 
history will be noted, but it will be the brighter 
side of the shield that the author will endeavour to 
present to his readers. The tragedy of the re- 
giment's campaigning for a long time buried the 
comedy out of sight so far as the author was con- 
cerned. But time numbs all wounds if it does not 
heal them ; and, to-day, precisely one year from 
the date he was mustered in as ist Lieutenant and 
Quartermaster of the regiment, he commences a 
narrative that he projected simultaneously with 
that appointment, and for which he took many 

notes. 

iii 



IV 



PREFACE 



There are, however, other reasons why the book 
should be written. The historian must make up 
his history from the evidence that seems strongest 
in the mass of material he collects. No two people 
see things exactly alike under even ordinary cir- 
cumstances. In the excitement of battle, or of 
hurried work of less, though great importance, 
mental impressions become varied in a superlative 
degree. And sometimes it becomes necessary to 
correct errors arising in such circumstances. In 
one volume printed on the subject the author has 
counted mis-statements of fact that in the aggre- 
gate show one for nearly every other page in the 
book. The author was sincere but evidently 
misinformed. 

There is a still more important reason why the 
history of the regiment should be written from 
various standpoints. The greatest achievement 
of the Rough Riders is hardly appreciated to-day. 
Representative of four of the territorial divisions 
of the United States, in bodies, and of nearly all 
of the rest — to say nothing of many foreign coun- 
tries — in individuals, it has shown our own people, 
our government, and, what is perhaps better, 
foreign nations, what enormous fighting strength 
can be supplied by the people from the Mississippi 
to the Pacific. In this vast area practically every 



PREFACE V 

man can ride and shoot. They can be turned 
into an army as fast as they can be armed, equipped, 
and properly officered. Add them to the resources 
which the North and South produced during the 
civil war, now multiplied to a degree it is almost 
impossible to estimate, and the huge standing 
armies of the European powers sink into utter 
insignificance. 

But such men must be properly armed, equipped, 
and fed. This will require legislation and a huge 
military reform. Therefore Europe need fear no 
interference from us in her interesting if not 
absolutely jolly little progressive military party. 
We shall not be ready for the game in — shall I 
say years or generations ? 

But, when we are ready, the term " Rough 
Riders " will not be given to a single regiment but 
to hundreds of them. The knights of chivalry 
have passed into the misty perspective of the cor 
ridors of time, along with the Roman legions and 
the Vandal hordes. They have been followed 
by Frederick's six-footers and Napoleon's dense 
masses. The fraiic-tireurs and zouaves and Prus- 
sia's night riders have travelled the same route. 
Even the Cossack, who was so much of a mystery 
and marvel less than a generation ago, has had his 
nose put out of joint, 



VI 



PREFACE 



Enter the Rough Rider — not one regiment of 
him, but an army of him. And when he '' antes " as 
he himself would say, " There will be a Hot Time 
in the Old Town That Night." 

Throughout Europe the greatest interest was 
manifested in this regiment. It was something 
new in the way of a fighting machine, and inci- 
dentally something that no European power could 
duplicate. Throughout the continent as well as 
among the British Isles the papers were filled with 
descriptions of the Rough Riders and with photo- 
graphs of them. Count Von Goetzen of the 
German Army, a personal friend of his Emperor, 
and a man of great experience in work of a similar 
description to that we were about to undertake, 
was particularly impressed with the regiment. 
He told Colonel (now General) Wood in my hear- 
ing that we were the only regiment of cavalry fit 
for mounted work in Cuba; at the same time crit- 
icising the regular cavalry in camp around us at 
Tampa for their heavy horses and their still 
heavier equipment. He afterwards lectured in 
Germany on the Rough Riders. All who were 
acquainted with Cuba seemed to take a similar 
view, many Cubans declaring that our horses were 
the only ones that would live. I must confess 
myself, however, to a great admiration for the 



PREFACE vii 

magnificent mounts of the regulars, and the 
splendid condition they were in. There is but 
one fault to find with them. They need their 
oats. Many of the Rough Riders' mounts would 
not eat oats. Such was the case with my own. 
In fact, while in Cuba he seemed to prefer nibbling 
at the trees to eating even of the grass that sur- 
rounded him. Perhaps the life was not rough 
enough for him. It was for his rider. 

To recapitulate : the Rough Rider was a regi- 
ment. He is now a type. Should we have to go 
to war again he will be an army. Every type of 
war machine, whether human being, metal, bow 
and arrow, or rounded stone, has had a beginning. 
The originals of most of the types have been lost 
in antiquity. Will this be the case with the 
Rough Riders of the Santiago campaign ? When 
the Patagonian or Greenlander of some future age 
searches the ruins of Washington for information 
concerning the Universal War will he learn that 
Roosevelt's Regiment of Rough Riders was the 
germ of a great fighting power ? Perhaps — but it 
will not make much difference to the regiment 
then. 

In the following pages I shall try to write from 
the standpoint of a chronicler and narrator, and 
not as an ofificer of the regiment. I therefore 



viii PREFACE 

crave the indulgence of the reader if I happen 
to write of too many of my own experiences, and 
of events that came under my own observation. 
They are what I know best. 



THE FUN AND FIGHTING OF 
THE ROUGH RIDERS 



CHAPTER I 

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 

When war was declared against Spain I was 
commencing to write a novel which has been 
completed and published since the war. I 
dropped the task and began writing letters to 
various authorities with a view to volunteering. 
I had been graduated at West Point and had 
served in the army until the Lorelei allurements 
of literature led me to resign. I supposed I 
should have no difficulty in obtaining a commis- 
sion. I wrote to the Secretary of War without 
success. I then wrote to General Corbin, the 
Adjutant General of the army — no hope. I fol- 
lowed this up with a letter to General Miles, whom 
I had the honour to meet while in the service at 
Fort Apache, Arizona. Same story. I appealed 
to the President. Like result. All of these gen- 
tlemen answered politely but briefly — " No." I 



2 FUN AND FIGHTING 

have known a number of pretty but otherwise 
estimable young ladies to say the same thing in 
much the same manner. 

I was more than mildly astonished. I had sup- 
posed a graduated cadet and an army officer of 
some experience would be useful in the emergency 
of sudden war. I felt as many of my rejected 
manuscripts have looked — especially like one that 
a certain magazine, published in a town on the 
Hudson, held for a year in its office. This man- 
uscript went forth arrayed like a bridegroom 
going to his wedding. It came back in the con- 
dition of the prodigal son. Of course it was not 
the fault of the magazine or its editors. Time 
had done the deed. When I wrote for the return 
of this manuscript I sent three two-cent stamps 
with the letter asking that the story be sent to 
my address at that time. I had moved during the 
year, and my stamped and addressed envelope in- 
closed with the MS. would take my story to the 
other end of a long railway system and beyond. 
Not the editor, but apparently some one else, re- 
turned the manuscript in the stamped and directed 
envelope. The three stamps were accepted, though 
they have not appeared yet in the magazine. 

Having inherited some tenacity of purpose 
from distant relatives who sleep in ancient New 



THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 3 

England graveyards, I tried again. I had some 
classmates and West Point friends in the War 
Department, and I wrote to them. Their answers 
coincided with mathematical accuracy. There 
were millions of men who wanted to volunteer, 
but most of them wanted to be officers. The 
majority wanted to be brigadier generals, but 
would take a second lieutenancy if they could 
do no better. 

The situation reminded me of one that existed 
in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, in the later 
seventies. There was one militia company in the 
county (the county was then as large as the state 
of New York) and in this company there was but 
one private. Every one else was an officer, com- 
missioned, non-commissioned, or self-appointed. 
The one private was a human wreck who lived on 
whiskey — whiskey of the kind that you have to 
drain through your teeth. Out there, at that 
time, they pronounced the word " drain " as 
though it were spelled " dreen." The officers 
took turns drilling the solitary private. In the 
course of time he died. 

Everything is fish that comes to a writer's net, 
if it be nothing more than the raucous voice of 
the woman next door scolding her spouse. I 
determined to pursue that coveted commission if 



4 FUN AND FIGHTING 

I had to follow it to the end of the rainbow, if 
only to write up my experiences. So I wrote to 
the two senators from the state that appointed 
me to West Point asking their help. My friends 
in Washington had assured me that I could do 
nothing without strong political influence. One 
of these senators had honoured his state and his 
country for half a lifetime. He made a personal 
appeal to the President for me, and wrote me 
several encouraging letters. But without avail 
were his kindly efforts. The other senator was 
in his first term in the senate and was the most 
bellicose member of that body in regard to the 
war with Spain. He never lost an opportunity 
to belch his thunder, but my plaintive appeal was 
lost in its reverberations. He never answered my 
letter. 

After this I wrote to the governors of three 
states in which I had resided, offering my services 
in any capacity. My ambition was deadened. I 
was now ready to go as a water-carrier. A fault 
in sex alone prevented me from volunteering as a 
vivandiere. From each of these governors I re- 
ceived a neatly type-written reply declining my 
proffered aid. I made one last appeal to the War 
Department. On the morning of April 30th, 1898, 
I received a note of three lines signed by Secre- 



THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 5 

tary Alger. The three lines stood for a polite 
" No." Then I started in to write up my experi- 
ences. The work was not completed when I re- 
ceived the same day a telegram from Colonel 
Wood asking me if I would be willing to go with 
the 1st Volunteer Calvalry as Regimental Quarter- 
master. 

Would I ? I would have been willing to go as 
an army mule by that time. I answered in the 
affirmative. The next night I started for Washing- 
ton to clinch the appointment before some one 
more enterprising had snatched it from me. 

On that next morning, May 2d, I met Colonel 
Wood at the War Department, was introduced to 
Secretary Alger, who consented to my appoint- 
ment very graciously (after twice refusing me one 
previously), and was mustered into the service of 
the United States about half an hour after I 
entered the building. Colonel Wood was to start 
for San Antonio that night. He wanted me to 
go with him, but it was necessary for me to return 
to New York for my clothes and a quick disposi- 
tion of business affairs. All this I did in a state of 
great elation. At the time I did not know it, but 
some friends had been quietly at work in my behalf 
without my knowledge. There are lights as well 
as shadows in this dreary life. I think the world 



6 FUN AND FIGHTING 

of my enemies because they keep me struggling 
to maintain my head above water. I would not 
part with one of them, and hope that Dame 
Fortune will give me more. But it is kind of 
restful once in a while to learn, in a quiet, practical 
way, that you have friends. 

On the trip to Washington just mentioned I 
was in a state of nervous perturbation. I do not 
refer to New Jersey. It was a mental state, I 
fancied that every young looking man in the train 
was going to Washington to get the particular 
office I was after. Before the time for starting I 
looked them over carefully. Among them I found 
William Astor Chanler. I had signed with the 
regiment he had raised, as well as with one that 
was being raised by Lafayette Post G. A. R. 
Chanler's regiment was rejected, and I suppose 
— if he enclosed stamps — was returned to him. I 
viewed him with suspicion, and I have no doubt 
he looked upon me in the same light. He told 
me he was going down to Florida to start an ex- 
pedition or something of that nature in his own 
yacht and on his own account, by and with the 
approval of the Junta. I forget what particular 
excuse I gave for being pointed in the direction 
of Washington. It is well to forget such things. 
The next day we met in the War Department. 



THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 7 

He had just been appointed a Captain on General 
Wheeler's staff. I had just been appointed to 
Colonel Wood's staff. We shook hands very cor- 
dially and grinned. Explanations were unneces- 
sary. 

On the 3d I started for San Antonio, where the 
regiment was to rendezvous, arriving there on the 
7th. The Arizona contingent had arrived the day 
before, under command of Major Brodie, and was 
camped at the Fair Grounds, the men occupying 
the main building, the officers the gallery, save 
Major Brodie, who occupied a tent. Our pack 
train was also camped on the grounds, having just 
arrived from St. Louis, and the packers had al- 
ready begun the instructions of the mules. It 
was a fine train, splendidly equipped, and it was a 
pity we could not take it with us, later, to Cuba. 
By the time we were ready to embark at Tampa 
it was thoroughly trained, and this is saying much. 
It had been divided into three trains, one for each 
squadron. Each of these trains was led by a bell 
mare, and the rapidity with which the mules 
learned to follow their own mare and stay with 
their own train was wonderful. Still more won- 
derful was it to see the ease with which they were 
trained to take their places in line, each in front 
of his own pack outfit, either to be loaded or tp 



8 FUN AND FIGHTING 

have his back cleaned at the end of a practice 
march. Indeed there is but one fauh to find with 
the pack mule of the American army. He is of 
a deeply religious nature and says his brayers vo- 
ciferously at unseemly times. No one kicks at 
his kicking. In fact a use was discovered for it by 
one of the Rough Riders. When the gas had 
escaped from the signal balloon sent up at San 
Juan to view the enemy's position, one of our men 
suggested that if we had a couple of our pack 
mules with us they could kick the balloon into the 
clouds. 

It will be seen from the foregoing that Head- 
quarters and the Arizona contingent arrived almost 
simultaneously with the pack train. Alas, the 
equipment and stores, which Colonels Wood and 
Roosevelt had with great foresight started on 
their way to the rendezvous by fast freight, some 
time before, had not arrived. Major Brodie's 
squadron had come provided with little or nothing 
in the way of bedding or anything else, as was 
quite natural. Every one supposed that every- 
thing necessary would be on hand before the ar- 
rival of the first soldier in the regiment. Colonel 
Wood was of course grievously disappointed, but 
immediately put his shoulder to the wheels that 
were in reach, and Colonel Roosevelt in Wash- 



THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 9 

ington put his broad shoulders to the car wheels 
at his end of the line. Our freight cars were lost 
here, there, and everywhere along the roads. We 
did not understand the system of running southern 
railroads then. We do not now. Our equip- 
ment was to come by fast freight ! And in a 
government emergency at that ! 

In this dilemma it was well that we had two 
such human reservoirs of kinetic energy at either 
end of the line as Wood and Roosevelt. I will not 
attempt to say how much wire was burned off the 
telegraph terminals by the telegrams sent by 
these two officers, or how many instruments were 
damaged ; but the total destruction must have 
been considerable. At any rate the wheels be- 
gan to move, and in a few days the equipment 
began arriving, in small and varied carloads at 
first, but eventually with a rush. In the mean- 
time Colonel Roosevelt, boiling with anxiety to 
join and get into the practical work, was compelled 
to remain in Washington to keep things moving. 
If a hitch occurred anywhere (and there were 
many of them) he could go straight to the man 
whose single word would straighten matters out. 
In all this he was doing about as important work 
as any one did in the campaign. His foresight, 
as I have said before, and Colonel Wood's, had 



10 FUN AND FIGHTING 

wrung from Dally, Dilatory & Co. — who were in 
charge of affairs at Washington before war was 
formally declared — as fine an equipment as a 
cavalry regiment could desire. They were equally 
successful in handling Hurry, Haste & Co. (un- 
limited) after war was declared. It was harder 
work handling the railroads, but it was accom- 
plished. We are all beginning to realise, to be 
dimly conscious of the very patent fact, that the 
people are made of the railroads, by the railroads, 
and for the railroads. When a railroad is elected 
President of the United States and both houses 
of Congress are filled with railroads we will under- 
stand the situation thoroughly. 

While waiting patiently (satirical for impatiently) 
for the railroads to disgorge, something had to be 
done to provide even the slightest comfort for the 
men. Here Colonel Wood bent his energies 
with the almost tireless activity with which he — 
the only white man who ever did it — ran over 
mountain trails in Arizona in company with 
Apache scouts until the scouts dropped from ex- 
haustion. Fort Sam Houston was situated at the 
other side of San Antonio on Government Hill, and 
was garrisoned by a part of the generous and cele- 
brated Fifth Cavalry. They came to our rescue 
nobly, as did the staff departments. We drew 



THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS ii 

everything that could be spared from the quarter- 
master's stores at the post and after that borrowed 
condemned cooking utensils, camp equipage, and 
so forth which were awaiting the order for destruc- 
tion. It was not an inspiring sight to see three 
or four troopers of Ours drinking coffee out of a 
single cup (there were by no means enough to 
go around) that had been condemned as unfit for 
a regular to use. It was the same with tin plates. 
Several men ate from one plate with their fingers, 
for we had no knives or forks to give them, but 
there was not a complaint. Those men were 
thoroughbreds. But I often wondered what they 
thought of such a state of affairs. 

In the meantime the Fifth Cavalry was waiting 
with harrowing anxiety for orders to go to the 
front, and nervous with fear that they would be 
one of the regiments to be left in their own coun- 
try. This did not prevent them from aiding us, 
however. Lieutenant Haines of that regiment, 
Post Commissary, took charge of the important 
duty of feeding us. Our horses were bought by 
the Quartermaster stationed there, and were pro- 
vided with hay and grain from the post. Lieu- 
tenant Jenkins, the Adjutant of the Fifth, pro- 
vided everything he could spare, including to me 
personally (he was a classmate of mine at West 



12 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Point) an old pair of shoulder straps — the only 
ones I was able to obtain during the war. We 
ordered and ordered all sorts of necessary insignia, 
but the dealers were too busy with orders nearer 
home to pay any attention to us. It was useless 
to order khaki uniforms. All cloth of that de- 
scription was already in the hands of the tailors, 
who had not then a sufficient supply. The mills 
were just beginning to manufacture a further and 
sufficient quantity. As a consequence most of 
the officers were compelled to buy the brown uni- 
forms issued to enlisted men and have them al- 
tered into something like a fit, or to buy the 
material and have uniforms made. These were 
decorated with yellow cloth ; and in many instances 
the insignia were cut out of this cloth and sewed 
on. Afterwards in the field, when jackets were 
thrown away, these yellow cloth tokens of rank 
were cut out of the yellow trimmings on the dis- 
carded jacket and sewn on the shirt, or cut out 
of tin from empty tomato cans. I am rather cer- 
tain that Colonel Roosevelt himself wore more 
or less of this untailor-made roughness and w^as 
rather proud of it. Both he and Colonel Wood 
came provided with kahki uniforms. They looked 
very nice at first, but after a week's wear and a 
washing they looked sadly different, 



THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 13 

A number of the men who joined from the North 
and East also came provided with khaki uniforms, 
and gave themselves away as being promised or 
anticipating appointments as commissioned offi- 
cers. They had to adopt the brown overalls for a 
time, but most of them clung to the pretty khaki 
suits until they could wear them with propriety. 

Among ourselves we were known, and officially 
also, as the ist U. S. Volunteer Cavalry. The 
newspapers, however, had named the regiment 
the " Rough Riders," probably on account of the 
apt alliteration with Colonel Roosevelt's name. 
Most of the papers were friendly and complimen- 
tary to an unnecessary degree, but this very fact 
made others disparage the regiment, and some to 
actually revile it. Nor did the publicity given to 
the regiment do us any good with the regular 
army. The regiment was advertised too much. 
If it had been a Wild West show the advertising 
would have been invaluable. But to a regiment 
of men earnestly intent, from colonel to corporal 
and from A on the roster of privates to Z, on pre- 
paring themselves for duty as soldiers in the quick- 
est time on record, it was quite unwelcome. 
There were some men in the army — as there are 
in all ranks and classes of men — who were weak 
enough to be jealous ; and some of them had the 



14 FUN AND FIGHTING 

power and opportunity to throw obstacles in the 
way of the regiment. But the regiment never had 
any difficulty in riding over those obstacles — and 
often somewhat " roughly " at that. 

It is but fair to say that most of this jealousy 
disappeared later in the campaign. After the 
charge at San Juan a trooper of the Rough Riders 
shouted, " Somebody give me a chew of tobacco." 
An officer in command of a troop of regulars near 
him pulled a plug of the desired weed from his 
pocket and gave it to the man, saying, '' Here, 
you fellows can have anything I've got." And 
before the campaign ended Colonel Roosevelt 
was a more potent factor in the army of invasion 
than most of the grizzled veterans of the civil war. 



CHAPTER II 

THE BAPTISM OF DISCIPLINE 

It was the original hope and intention of the 
regiment to be given a roving commission in Cuba 
— to act almost independently, I suppose, some- 
what after the manner of Marion's men. The 
idea was to equip, drill, march part way to the 
coast, thence — from some convenient point — go 
by rail to Galveston and take ship for some point 
in Cuba, west of Havana. After this it was 
expected that we should act more or less in con- 
junction with the Cuban forces and make an ex- 
tended foray through the island. 

It soon developed, however, that Havana would 
not be the objective point of the army ; and that 
our chance lay in being ordered to join the 5th 
army corps, which was mobilizing at Tampa. This 
required all the more haste in equipping and drill- 
ing, for we expected to hear every day that the 
expedition had sailed. At first, indeed, the future 
seemed quite hopeless. In a few weeks, however, 

telegrams began to reach Colonel Wood asking 
2 IS 



i6 FUN AND FIGHTING 

how soon the regiment would be ready to start. 
It was with pardonable pride that the Colonel 
answered the very first of these with a telegram 
to the effect that the regiment was ready to move 
at a moment's notice with its full complement of 
men thoroughly equipped and mounted, with its 
horses all shod and a pair of extra shoes fitted for 
every horse in the regiment. All this had been 
done in three weeks, in fact in less than that time. 
If there is any record in the world to beat that 
the Rough Riders would like to have it produced. 
As a matter of fact the Rough Riders were in as 
good a condition to fight the battle of Guasimas on 
May 24th, 1898, as they were on June 24th. Most 
of the time intervening was spent in travel by land 
and sea. 

How was it done ? The only answer is, by the 
expenditure of an enormous amount of American 
energy. Even to-day it seems almost like a dream 
to the writer. Both Colonels Wood and Roose- 
velt were saturated with energy, and the ofificers 
and men added their own with grim enthusiasm. 

The first ten days broke the back of the diffi- 
culty of organizing; but it was a ten days the 
writer never wishes to see again. I was Regi- 
mental Quartermaster by appointment. Lieuten- 
ant Capron of the 7th Cavalry was to be Adjutant 



THE BAPTISM OF DISCIPLINE 17 

when he arrived. But he was elected Captain by- 
one of the Indian Territory troops he had mus- 
tered in, and the office of Adjutant was later given 
to me. In the meantime, however, I acted as Adju- 
tant in addition to my duties as Quartermaster. 
I also acted as Commissary, and likewise had 
charge of the ordnance stores. For several weeks 
I acted nominally as troop commander of " K " 
troop which at that time did not have a commis- 
sioned officer present. It was necessary that some 
one in the nature of a commissioned officer should 
be responsible for the property issued to the troop, 
and I was the only available man. 

Let me explain here that I use the term " com- 
missioned officer " for convenience. As a matter 
of fact we were all officers by appointment. 

In addition to my other duties I acted as in- 
structor in guard duty. On top of all I had to 
study the new cavalry drill regulations, a pretty 
good job in itself, for three weeks. Added to the 
rest I had to sign passes for the men to leave camp ; 
and answer (to the best of my ability) the ques- 
tions of many anxious learners. As Regimental 
Quartermaster I had to receipt for practically 
everything delivered to the regiment — and one 
thing or another was being delivered constantly. 
As the original Quartermaster Sergeant deserted 



i8 FUN AND FIGHTING 

within a day or two after his arrival in camp and 
we had no Commissary Sergeant until later, I was 
unable to make out receipts for myself when issu- 
ing to the troops, and I was prepared to go into 
bankruptcy when the government got around to 
demanding my accounts, receipts, expenditures 
and so forth. Nor did I ever get receipts, save 
for the various things loaned from the condemned 
stores at Fort Sam Houston. These had to be 
returned so that they could be destroyed to the 
satisfaction of the inspector at his next visit. 
Eventually the matter was straightened out, as 
both Colonels Wood and Roosevelt assured me it 
would be, and I rest in the serene consciousness 
that if the government's account with me does not 
balance it is because the government owes me and 
not I the government. I am willing to call it 
square though. If the government is rich enough 
to stand it I am poor enough to take a like view 
of the situation. 

It was all excellent practice, however. Before 
we broke camp at San Antonio I can almost say 
— not quite but almost — that I could sign a receipt 
with one hand and a pass with the other, at the 
same time answering the questions of a mystified 
member of the guard and dissecting a new and 
wonderful movement in the drill regulations. 



THE BAPTISM OF DISCIPLINE 19 

Very often after I had dissected such a movement, 
some regular ofificer would happen along and in- 
form me that the movement had been materially 
altered by recent amendments to the drill regula- 
tions. And in some cases after puzzling my head 
over something that seemed utterly incomprehen- 
sible, to say nothing of impossible, I would learn 
in the same way that there was a mistake in the 
book, either in the- diagram or in the text. 

The passes to leave camp were the greatest 
nuisance, however. They were granted at first on 
the slightest excuse. It was the wise policy of 
our Colonel to break the men into discipline by 
degrees, and gradually tighten the bonds. As a 
consequence passes innumerable were issued at 
first, and their duration extended sometimes over 
night. Day by day the number granted became 
more reduced and the duration limited, until, be- 
fore the regiment left San Antonio, the men had 
become acccustomed to the restraint of military 
life to a very satisfactory degree. It was hard 
work though. The hardest that ever fell to me. 
Colonel Wood had to be here, there, and every- 
where, and his waggon was constantly on the go. 
Before leaving in the morning he would give 
directions that passes should be issued to so many 
men from each troop — always providing that the 



20 FUN AND FIGHTING 

permission of the troop commander had been 
previously obtained. He would also name the 
time at which the pass would expire. The result 
would be something like this, even though due 
notice had been given. 

A private would stroll up to the Adjutant's tent 
in a half embarrassed but thoroughly good-natured 
way. He would walk in and take a seat. Then 
a conversation would ensue much like the follow- 
ing. 

The Adjutant. Now, Smith (fictitious name of 
course), I don't want to hurt your feelings, 
but it is not proper for you to come into an 
officer's tent like this. If this were the only 
regiment in the army, that sort of thing might 
be passed over. But you will have to meet a 
great many officers who are not of your regi- 
ment, and you must learn the proper way to 
do these things, if only to keep yourself out 
of trouble. 

Private Smith. Well, I'm here to learn. Lieu- 
tenant. What must I do ? 

The Adjutant. When you come up to the tent 
of an officer, halt at the entrance, salute, and 
wait until you are spoken to. If the officer 
has not heard you or seen you come up rap 



THE BAPTISM OF DISCIPLINE 21 

lightly on the tent pole. He will then ask 
you what you want and you can explain. 

(Smith, looking rather sheepish, leaves the tent, 
comes up in the prescribed manner, salutes, 
and stands at attention.) 

The Adjutant. Well, Smith, what is it ? 

Smith. I'd like to get a pass signed. Lieuten- 
ant. 

The Adjutant. All right, hand it to me. 

(Smith enters the tent triumphantly, holding out 
the pass, but makes a further mistake. This 
time he thinks he is all right, so he sits down 
again.) 

The Adjutant. Not a bit like it. Smith. When 
you enter an officer's tent take your hat off 
and stand at attention. When you are 
through make an about face and go out. 

(With another sheepish smile Smith stands at 
attention and takes his hat off. The Ad- 
jutant glances quickly at the pass.) 

The Adjutant. Why, this pass isn't signed by 
your troop commander. Smith. 

Smith. The Captain's gone to town. Lieutenant. 

The Adjutant. Then your ist Lieutenant is 
troop commander. Get him to sign it. 

Smith. He's gone to town with the Captain, 
sir. 



32 FUN AND FIGHTING 

The Adjutant. Then get your 2d Lieutenant 
to sign it. 

Smith. I can't find him, sir. 

The Adjutant. What troop do you belong to ? 

Smith. '' X " troop, sir. 

The Adjutant. Well, your 2d Lieutenant was 
here a little while ago and said he was 
going over to the picket line of his troop, so 
you'll probably find him there. And, by the 
way, have him put in the time you are to be 
away. 

(Smith departs and returns in a few minutes. 
This time he does very well about saluting 
and so forth.) 

The Adjutant. Why, Smith, this pass reads 
from 7 P.M., until midnight. The Colonel 
gave orders, as you ought to know, and as your 
troop commander must know, that passes 
would not be good after nine o'clock. 

Smith. Why, Lieutenant, that would give me 
only two hours, — hardly time enough to get 
into town and back. 

The Adjutant. I can't help that, Smith. 
Those are the Colonel's orders. 

Smith (growing restive and on the point of 
anger). Lieutenant, this is the first time I 
have asked for a pass in ten days. 



THE BAPTISM OF DISCIPLINE 23 

The Adjutant. Tm sorry, Smith. But I have 
authority to give passes good until that time 
only. 

Smith. It's important business, Lieutenant. 
I've got some money sent by telegraph, and I 
want to get it. And I've got to send some 
telegrams and buy some things I need, too. 

The Adjutant. There is no use talking about 
it. I have no authority in the matter what- 
ever. Colonel Wood gave me the orders, and 
I have to obey them just as you do. 

Smith (angrily). Well, I don't see 

The Adjutant. Now that will do. 

(Smith leaves, and Private Brown comes up). 

The dialogue between Brown and the Adjutant 
is very similar, though quite as provoking, except 
that in this case the difficulty is that Brown's 
troop commander has already issued as many 
passes as his troop is entitled to under the Colonel's 
orders. In both these cases the men return to 
their troops in a highly indignant frame of mind ; 
and, as both consider that it is entirely a personal 
display of meanness on the part of the Adjutant, 
the latter is loved neither wisely nor too well. In 
fact not at all. 

After such a thing has happened twenty or 



24 FUN AND FIGHTING 

thirty times in one day the Adjutant has to have 
the patience of Job not to lose his temper. The 
Adjutant in this case was not provided by nature 
with the patience of Job, and the men soon came 
to understand what "yes "and " no " meant in 
military matters. It must not be understood that 
the men of the regiment as a rule were hard to 
handle or particularly unreasonable. In fact there 
is hardly a doubt that they took kindlier to dis- 
cipline (and there was no child's play in the dis- 
cipline of the regiment) than the average militia 
regiments that had had the advantage of complete 
organization for years. They simply did not 
know, and there was very little time to teach them. 
They were all men saturated with the indepen- 
dence of Americans, and especially with the in- 
dependence of Western Americans. Many of 
them were men of wealth and position, more ac- 
customed to disciplining others than to being dis- 
ciplined themselves. As a consequence there were 
some misunderstandings now and then, some more 
or less bitter disappointments regarding promo- 
tions and so forth. But all were terribly in ear- 
nest, and when they once " caught on to the game " 
there was very little more trouble. 

So far as receipting for stores, rations, equip- 
ment, ordnance, horses, mules, ammunition, and 



THE BAPTISM OF DISCIPLINE 25 

what not, I was utterly helpless. I had but one 
member of the non-commissioned staff to depend 
on and he was worked in his own department until 
both Colonel Wood and myself feared he would 
breakdown. This was Sergeant-Major Cam He 
was appointed a 1st Lieutenant before we left San 
Antonio, and no man deserved promotion better. 
But he could give me no help in the other depart- 
ments. In a day or two I was so lost in signing 
receipts that I gave up trying to look after them 
particularly. Indeed I finally reached a point 
when I would have signed a receipt for the New 
York World building or Cervera's fleet without a 
question. Through these first eight or ten days I 
averaged about four hours' sleep during each 
twenty-four. Colonel Wood got little more, if as 
much. When no one else was bothering him he 
could always depend on my doing so. It was 
usually not until the camp was soundly asleep that 
I got a chance to make my reports to him and get 
his directions for the following day. 



CHAPTER III 

ROUGH LIFE IN CAMP WOOD 

It was a fortunate thing for all concerned that 
the contingents from the various territories did 
not arrive on the same day, or even in the same 
week. We were able to take care of them as they 
arrived, therefore, with some slight degree of suc- 
cess. But, even as it was, the enlisted men of the 
regiment got a taste of very rough work from the 
moment they arrived at San Antonio. Men slept 
two or three to a single blanket on the bare floor 
of the main building. It was not until the de- 
layed stores arrived that each had a blanket for 
himself. In this extremity many of the men had 
to use the blankets and mantas belonging to the 
pack mule outfits, and two troops for several 
nights slept in the hay at the pavilion. Borrow- 
ing from the pack outfits was a nuisance of the 
first water, as the articles had to be returned each 
morning in order that they might be used on the 
mules, and obtained again each night. They 

were loaned very grumblingly, too. The train 

z6 



ROUGH LIFE IN CAMP WOOD 27 

master of a pack train is something of a despot. 
He is a civilian (being hired, not enlisted, by the 
government), but is not necessarily very civil. As 
Quartermaster I was responsible for the whole out- 
fit, and I had to insist on my authority to ob- 
tain the loan of even this makeshift bedding. One 
of the subordinate train masters was particularly 
disagreeable. He would not obey the chief 
packer, and had to get a lesson from me specially 
provided for himself. After that he was surly. 
That is not a good thing to be with military su- 
periors. It merely called their attention to him 
more particularly. A few nights later the sen- 
tinels discovered that some of the packers under 
this man were trading government oats issued to 
his train for liquor and other luxuries — and after 
the storm had cleared he was no longer surly. 

Too much praise can hardly be given the men 
of the regiment for the patience with which they 
accepted all this even unusual roughness. The 
camp was the most orderly one, considering its 
size, I have ever seen. More or less drunkenness 
can be expected in any large body of men ; but it 
looked for a time as though every man in the 
regiment had signed the pledge. Later there 
were a few cases of the ebullition and destructive 
distillation of spirits, but they were very rare. 



2S FUN AND FIGHTING 

And to the greater credit of the men it can be 
truthfully said that there were plenty of opportu- 
nities for them to get liquor if so they wished. It 
was not permitted to be sold in the camp or on 
the grounds, but bars were erected outside Colonel 
Wood's jurisdiction. The proprietors did not be- 
come wealthy. There were a fev/ rumours from 
the city of Rough Riders who jumped their 
horses over street cars, but there were palpable 
reasons for doubting the truth of the stories. But 
one man in the regiment was arrested by the 
police of San Antonio. His offence was trivial, 
and he was turned over to the regiment when it 
left for Tampa. On the arrival of Colonel Roose- 
velt he was appointed to the duty of Field Offi- 
cer's Court. The few cases of intoxication and 
minor delinquencies (probably less than ten) were 
turned over to him. He usually punished the 
delinquent by word of mouth, and the business 
end of the Colonel's tongue was feared more than 
a stay in the guard house. 

While on this subject it is only fair to the regi- 
ment to defend it against two attacks made upon 
its character which were wholly unjust. 

The first was occasioned by the malevolence of 
a San Antonio paper. Except during certain 
hours in the afternoon civilians were not per- 



ROUGH LIFE IN CAMP WOOD 29 

mitted within the limits of camp, unless provided 
with a written pass or accompanied by one of the 
commissioned officers of the regiment. These 
passes were issued to the representatives of the 
papers, including the newsboys who sold 
them. The youngster who sold the copies of the 
paper in question was of the description of boy 
who prefers the irregular way of doing things. 
To his romantic nature it was much more delight- 
ful to climb the fence or creep through a hole and 
scoot across a sentinel's post while the latter was 
not looking. He was caught the first time he 
tried it, and was warned that if he repeated the 
offence his pass would be taken away from him. 
He promptly tried it again, was again caught, and 
his pass confiscated. From that date on no more 
copies of his paper were sold in Camp Wood. 
The paper proceeded to get even in the usual 
way. Having little opportunity it made one. A 
San Antonio band gave a concert at a picnic 
ground not far from the camp, and the regiment 
was invited to attend. A fairly large number of 
the men did so, and fortunately some of the offi- 
cers attended. One of the selections on the pro- 
gramme was of a military nature. That is to say, 
the members of the band fired revolvers loaded 
with blank cartridges at certain of the harmonious 



30 FUN AND FIGHTING 

strains. This suited the crowd from town right 
down to the turf. They joined in the chorus with 
revolvers containing cartridges that were anything 
but blank. Men yelled, women screamed, and a 
frightened waiter dropped several glasses of beer. 
The paper aforesaid accused the men of the regi- 
ment of firing these revolvers. As a matter of 
fact every revolver and carbine in the regiment 
was under guard in the various companies, and 
not a round of ammunition had at that time been 
issued. The officers in attendance, including one 
of the field officers, were able to explain that not 
a man belonging to the regiment joined in the 
fusillade. But the matter was dished up in clever 
style and printed in newspapers all over the 
country. The vitality of a lie is amazing. The 
other papers in San Antonio, however, treated us 
with more fairness, and the courtesy of the offi- 
cials of the city was unvarying. 

The second misunderstanding was less serious, 
but was more mortifying than the first. It was 
while we were en route to Tampa. The regiment 
was preceded over the rails by an entirely different 
organisation calling itself '' Rough Riders." From 
the stories told on their journey they must have 
had quite a lively trip. Unfortunately the tar- 
nished glory of it was laid to the ist U. S. Vol- 



ROUGH LIFE IN CAMP WOOD 31 

unteer Cavalry. And again the news was spread 
broadcast. As a matter of fact the errors made 
by the newspapers were saddening. We often 
read in Northern papers of prominence of our ar- 
rival in Tampa long before we received orders to 
go there. The Rough Riders were not all of them 
angels or Sunday-school teachers. They were 
representative men from their sections of the 
country, however, very earnestly intent on the 
business before them. 

The make-up of the regiment was one of its 
most interesting features. Was there ever before 
such a personnel in the ranks of a military organ- 
isation ? We could have made up a certain child's 
game to fit all the buttons a French dressmaker 
could sew on a gown. 

Rich man, poor man, Indian chief, 
Doctor, lawyer, not one thief, 
Merchant, sheriff, artist, clerk, 
Clubman, quite unused to work, 
Miner, ocean gondolier, 
Broker, banker, engineer. 
Cowboy, copper, actor, mayor, 
College athletes, men of prayer, 
Champion amateur sports, to boot — 
And all of them could ride and shoot. 

The list could be prolonged considerably. The 
matter interested me greatly. I had found every 
profession represented but one. As I sat down at 



32 FUN AND FIGHTING 

the dry-goods box dinner table one day, I men- 
tioned the fact, and wondered audibly if there was 
an actor in the regiment. I was promptly in- 
formed of three. We had one newspaper corre- 
spondent in the ranks. He corresponded for a 
newspaper just once. He was then " interviewed " 
by Colonel Wood and concluded to write no more 
during his stay in the regiment. 

This bizarre make-up of the regiment gave me 
some queer experiences. It is not often that the 
Adjutant of a regiment of soldiers has a million- 
aire for an orderly one day, a cotillon leader the 
next, an arctic explorer the next, an African travel- 
ler the next and, so on through the roster. It was 
well for the writer that the brown uniforms came 
soon, and they all looked alike before he could dif- 
ferentiate between the cov/boy and the ex-colonel 
on some governor's staff ; otherwise the job would 
have been as embarrassing as it was unceasing. At 
the present moment I do not like to even wonder 
how many men of wealth, position, and power have 
done my official errands. I can only say that the 
work was all done willingly and well. No one can 
measure the self-abnegation of such men. 

The regiment was a community. It was 
" rough." Oh yes ! But if you wanted anything 
done from the mending of a shoe to the building 



ROUGH LIFE IN CAMP WOOD 33 

of a railroad you had but to raise your voice and 
ask for a man to do it. An expert would appear. 
We even had a naval officer in the person of one 
of our surgeons and a West Point cadet. Short- 
hand writers, telegraph operators, electricians, and 
type-writists were in abundance. Two of our 
captains were editors and I had to accept many 
manuscripts from them. For a short time we even 
had one opium fiend. We soon got rid of him. 

The number of men who wanted to join the 
regiment was simply amazing. The grand total 
numbered about ten thousand. One man, cele- 
brated for his daring and ability as a frontiersman, 
formed an entire company of picked men, Texans 
I think, and came to camp to volunteer for him- 
self and his band of willing fighters. He was a 
man of such repute that the thought never oc- 
curred to him that the regiment was full to over- 
flowing and that there was no place for him. 
When the situation was explained to him he was 
silent with wonder. 

To cap the climax we had two Spaniards in the 
regiment. One of these was Captain Luna, a 
thorough American, but of direct Spanish descent. 
The other was not discovered until he appeared 
on guard, and the discovery was a particularly 
ticklish piece of business. It was during the last 
3 



34 FUN AND FIGHTING 

few days of camp. Night had settled on the 
dirty, sandy plain om which the little shelter tents 
of the men (why they are called " shelter " tents 
no one knows — it is a solecism in nomenclature, 
they are the only tents that do not shelter) were 
pitched. Musical, melancholy taps had been 
borne on the breath of the bugle. Among the 
thousand men and horses there was hardly a 
sound save that of the sentry tramping up and 
down in front of the line of headquarters tents 
and an occasional sharp crack from the picket 
lines as one horse kicked another in the ribs to 
make him behave. Owing to the silence my ear 
caught the sound of a disturbance at one of the 
more remote sentry posts. I waited to see what 
the row would develop into. Presently I heard 
the clanking of a sabre, and the officer of the day 
approached. 

" Say," said he, " what am I going to do ? I've 
got a Spaniard out there on number 9." 

'' A Spaniard so soon ! " I wondered audibly. 

" Yes," answered the officer of the day. '' He's 
the sentinel on number 9." 
. " Well, what's the matter with him ? " I asked. 

*' Why," said the officer of the day, " he can't 
speak English. He can understand a little of it 
but he can't speak a word and won't try. Now 



ROUGH LIFE IN CAMP WOOD 35 

the night orders are in effect and we can't get to 
him either to inspect him or relieve him." 

Then I understood. It was a very pretty situa- 
tion. He had managed to get through during the 
day tours of his relief some way or other, but 
challenging and advancing at night required some 
use of the English language. It looked for a 
moment as though that sentinel would have to be 
left on post until broad daylight. But we finally 
managed to rout out of his slumbers a man who 
could speak Spanish, and sent him along as an in- 
terpreter. The Spaniard was not put on guard 
again until he could master enough English for 
the occasion. 



CHAPTER IV 

OUTFITTING 

As I have said before, the clothing and equip- 
ment for the regiment came in assorted lots. To 
save time it was decided to issue the articles as 
soon as they were delivered to us. It was a 
rather bewildering proceeding. The men would 
be issued a spoon and a pair of gloves one day, 
a coat and a mess pan the next, a tin cup and 
a cartridge belt the next, and so on. Sometimes 
there would be three or four issues in a day. As 
the first troop to arrive was the first to be issued 
to, and so on in turn, there was some great foot 
racing between the various troops. It was no fun 
for them to stand in line in the hot sun waiting 
a turn. 

But the issuing was soon reduced to a science. 
This was accomplished by the generous help of 
Captain Cooper of the regiment of which I had 
once been a second lieutenant, the loth Cavalry. 
He observed the difficulties with which I was sur- 
rounded, and generously devoted almost all of his 

36 



OUTFITTING 37 

time to helping me. He had mustered in the 
New Mexico troops and had come along with 
them. These, by the way, were the only troops of 
the regiment who brought an ounce of food with 
them. They turned over seven boxes of hard- 
tack to me. They had been several days on the 
trip and they had got tired of hardtack. Captain 
Cooper spent his evenings explaining to me the 
uses of several thousand official blanks which had 
been forwarded to me in my various official capa- 
cities. I uttered many more blanks when I re- 
ceived them. But he did far more. He assisted 
in the distribution of the equipment in a manner 
that made our eyes stick out with wonder. He 
was an expert. I would call a name from a troop 
roll. The man would step forward promptly and 
run a sort of gauntlet with Captain Cooper on one 
side. Lieutenant Griffen, the witnessing officer, 
and myself on the other in prolongation of a line 
of open boxes each presided over by an enlisted 
man who would hand out the article as the victim 
passed. As the man advanced he would call out 
the size hat he wore, or the size of his shoes or 
gloves. Captain Cooper would take a quick crit- 
ical glance at him, size him up, and call out the 
size and breadth of coat or trousers, and amend 
the size of hat or shoes if necessary in his judg- 



38 FUN AND FIGHTING 

ment. At the end of the gauntlet Major Dunn 
would announce that the man had been fully, if 
not foully dealt with, and he would be checked off 
accordingly. The Major was a Master of Hounds 
in some fox-hunting club, and was the only man 
who enjoyed the job. He could sit in the shade 
and usually had a bucket of iced lemonade by his 
side. He would now and then offer Griffen and 
myself some. I don't know what Griffen did, but 
the major looked so cool and comfortable gen- 
erally, and so exceedingly spruce, that I usually 
declined the potion from sheer spite. Now and 
then club friends and acquaintances of the Major 
would run the gauntlet, and he seldom lost the 
opportunity for a joke at their expense, knowing 
that they did not dare to reply, did not even dare 
to grin. 

Some of the situations were comical. The men 
would sometimes get the sizes of their hats, shoes, 
and gloves mixed up. Sometimes there would be 
a mistake in the judgment of some of us in regard 
to the size of coat or length of trousers needed by 
the man. Then a woebegone line of men would 
appear, after the issue, with coats that would not 
button or coats that would go twice around the 
owner, with shoes that they could not get on or 
shoes that they could jump out of. 



OUTFITTING 39 

Immense Hamilton Fish walked grimly down the 
line at an issue of shoes calmly calling out a number 
several sizes larger than we could supply. He 
was about the only one of the Eastern men, college 
men, club men, and so forth who did not have to 
don rough army shoes that day. 

The men had to draw the articles ordered for 
them whether they were in need of them, or not. 
The very first issue was of rubber ponchos and 
cheap cotton undershirts. Neither drawers, stock- 
ings nor outer shirts of blue flannel had yet arrived, 
and there were only enough cotton undershirts 
on hand at the time to go once around. Imagine 
a man like Woodbury Kane walking solemnly 
down a long row of ofificers and men and drawing 
his one cotton undershirt with as much dignity as 
though it were a diamond pin. He tried to escape 
drawing a poncho as he already had one. But 
fate was against him. He had to come back and 
take his poncho, as he was charged with one on 
the clothing roll and there was no time to waste 
on corrections. Neither did we wish to leave any- 
thing unissued. 

Having finally roused the railroad authorities to 
action and being assured of the prompt delivery 
of our equipment, Colonel Roosevelt left Wash- 
ington about ten days after the arrival of our first 



40 FUN AND FIGHTING 

troops and joined us at San Antonio. He 
was to have the tent next to Colonel Wood's, on 
the right of the line, and I had been occupying it 
in order to hold it for him. Upon his arrival I 
expected to sleep in my office tent, back of the 
line, and had made arrangements to do so. The 
Lieutenant-Colonel would have nothing of the 
kind, however. Colonel Wood so informed me 
when I was making preparations to move. I ex- 
plained to the latter that having served in the 
army I was quite accustomed to being ranked out 
of quarters and very much preferred to let the 
Colonel have the privacy of the tent to which he 
v/as entitled. Colonel Wood, being a regular 
officer, appreciated my view of the situation but 
assured me that Colonel Roosevelt had declared 
that if the mere fact of his arrival made me move 
from a tent I was occupying he would put up in 
town. As no argument could move him, the ar- 
rangement he insisted on prevailed, and I found 
myself tenting with the most remarkable man I 
had ever met— and as I have lived in the four 
quarters of America, to say nothing of the 
centre and intermediate points, I have met many 
men. 

Colonel Roosevelt is a man of more than medium 
height and a man of strength rather than grace in 



OUTFITTING 41 

movement. He is nervous, energetic, virile. He 
may wear out some day, but he will never rust out. 
I never saw a man with such a capacity for work. 
He seemed to be positively unhappy when he 
wasn't doing something. During his canvass for 
the Governorship of New York he was reported by 
the newspapers on the last day as taking a rest in 
the quiet of his home. I don't believe it. I 
don't think he could rest if he wanted to. He 
might possibly slow down a trifle and by com- 
parison seem to be resting, but it would not be 
rest. I am quite sure he never slept more than 
three hours a night, and his sleep was so light that 
the rustle of a paper would wake him. If there 
was nothing else to do he could be found poring 
over a book on some military subject. He usually 
walked up and down while he read as though his 
body had to keep pace with his mind. He would 
read a page or part of one, then clasp the book in 
his hands behind his back and think about it. He 
was serenely self-unconscious. He would practice 
giving commands within fifty feet of half the regi- 
ment as earnestly as he would have done so had he 
been alone in a desert. Ordinarily people like to do 
their rehearsing in private. Colonel Roosevelt is 
an exception to most rules. He did everything 
with an almost ferocious earnestness, whether it 



42 FUN AND FIGHTING 

was learning the new manual of the carbine or the 
officer's manual of the sabre, or helping in instruc- 
tion at drill. He was polite almost to the extent 
of making one uneasy — most of the time. Then 
again there were occasions when he was not polite. 
I suppose he usually had a reason when he was 
not. He frequently said that even if he did not 
know how to do a thing he would do it, get it 
done some way or other. He was by no means 
infallible in judgment. But he was as unchange- 
able as time, usually. He stood by the men he 
personally liked with an unswerving loyalty that 
was almost Grantlike. But he was not as tolerant as 
Grant with men whom he did not like. Though 
he said little of his future aspirations it was 
evident to all who met him that he was tremend- 
ously ambitious. So was Caesar they say. Accord- 
ing to his lights he was usually just in decisions 
affecting others, though he has not yet touched the 
standard of greatness in many ways. That may 
come in time. In many and in unusual ways he has 
had a hard row to hoe in his official life. Gentle- 
ness comes with the serenity of victory and the 
passing of years. The victory has come to Roose- 
velt, and the years will also, for he is hardly more 
than forty years of age. There are people who 
underestimate the man because he seems to have 



OUTFITTING 43 

had a tremendous start in life through social posi- 
tion and the possession of independent means. 
These are the people who read on the door of 
success only the word '' pull." They are blind to 
the legend on the other side, '' push." With his 
qualities of mind and untiring energy, both spurred 
by ambition, it is quite probable that Roosevelt 
would be further advanced to-day if he had been 
born poor and friendless. 

In speaking, whether forensically or conversa- 
tionally, under excitement, Colonel Roosevelt 
speaks much after the manner of a cannon. Each 
word leaves his mouth as though expelled by 
a charge of powder, and is followed by a short 
silence as though a reloading process was in 
operation. 

There was a pronounced difference between our 
two colonels. Roosevelt was much the same at 
all times. Wood was at ordinary times gentle, 
soft-spoken, and almost jovial. In moments of 
excitement he was stern, severe, and harsh. Col- 
onel Wood has a gift of diplomacy that may some 
day be utilized by the nation. Roosevelt's 
methods are more direct. Wood asks advice but 
seldom information. Roosevelt asks information 
but never advice. It is not often that the latter 
asks even information, and he does not like to 



44 FUN AND FIGHTING 

have it volunteered. Except in routine work I 
was almost useless to the latter as an adjutant. 
He seemed to want to do everything himself. I 
knew enough not to suggest, however. 



CHAPTER V 

DRILLING 

The mosquitoes in Camp Wood were something 
terrible and wonderful. The New Jersey mos- 
quito is an amateur compared with his Texan 
cousin. I bought a mosquito netting, determin- 
ing to enjoy what sleep I could get. Conversing 
with Colonel Wood on the subject I found that 
he had one also, but was not using it as he thought 
it would not look well in the eyes of the men. I 
did not use mine, therefore, but bought a bottle 
of rank smelling mosquito medicine, which I 
rubbed on my face, hands, and arms. The odour 
drove the mosquitoes away. It almost drove Col- 
onel Roosevelt away, also. He had the moral cour- 
age to use a mosquito netting and did not pat- 
ronize the mosquito medicine used by the rest 
of us. 

About this time the regiment received a present 
of two Colt rapid-fire guns. As I have the story, 
they were presented by the sisters of Woodbury 
Kane and one or two of the privates of " K '* 

45 



46 FUN AND FIGHTING 

troop. The detail for them was, therefore, made 
up from " K " troop. When Colonel Wood ex- 
amined them he discovered that there was but a 
limited supply of ammunition with them. We 
could not use our ammunition in them, but the 
Mauser bullet, which is a trifle smaller than our 
own, fitted them exactly. 

" All right," said Colonel Wood, " we'll capture 
the ammunition for them from the Spaniards." 
And this was actually done. At San Juan a large 
supply of Spanish ammunition was captured by 
the regiment and used in the guns against the 
Spaniards. 

As the *' K " troop clubmen now had something 
" more than the rest of the regiment " a joke had 
to be played on them to make things even. As 
already stated men had to be possessed of a pass 
in order to leave camp. This they exhibited to 
the sentinel at the sally port as they went out, 
again on their return, and if they had overstayed 
their time they were promptly marched to the 
guardhouse. A smart sentinel took advantage of 
the unsuspicious nature of some of the " K " troop 
men, and insisted on taking up their passes as they 
went out. When they returned another sentinel 
was on post, they had no passes and were promptly 
locked up. Thej' were all men of social prominence 



DRILLING 47 

in the East and every move they made was care- 
fully noted by the papers. They were in great 
fear, therefore, that the fact that they had been 
locked up in the guard house would be published 
broadcast, and they had several conniption fits 
before matters were explained and they were 
liberated. 

The horses for the regiment were purchased be- 
fore the arrival of the horse equipments. They 
were all Western horses, most of them broncos 
although a few were of mixed blood — half thor- 
oughbreds. (As a matter of fact the bronco is of 
mixed blood himself.) Troopers were sent from 
our camp to Fort Sam Houston several times a 
day to ride or drive the accepted horses to our 
picket lines. As most of these horses were prac- 
tically unbroken, the men were constantly perform- 
ing feats of horsemanship that were truly remark- 
able. A trooper would tie ten or twelve of the 
horses head to head with the cheap, weak, rope 
halters with which they were provided when pur- 
chased. He would then jump on the bare back of 
another, drive his own untamed steed with noth- 
ing but a similar halter, and lead, at the same time, 
the aforesaid eight or ten. There were some wild 
times along the road. In some cases the horses 
would be driven in herds through San Antonio. 



48 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Then there were even wilder times. On one occa- 
sion forty horses were lost in a bunch. It was 
late at night and during one of the fiercest thunder 
storms I ever witnessed. I have seen it rain per- 
pendicularly and at a number of angles with the 
plane of the horizon. This was the only time I 
ever saw it rain horizontally. I am not quite sure 
but that it rained upward at a small angle rather 
than downward. At any rate the camp was turned 
into a lake in about half an hour and I, personally, 
got a bath that was more thorough than cleanly. 
I had to go out into the storm to check off the 
few horses that arrived and to look after a waggon 
load of rations that was stuck in the mud a couple 
of hundred yards out of camp. The waggon had 
to be left in the road. It was very wet bread that 
the men had for breakfast next morning. All the 
horses were found the next day save two. A 
board of survey cleared me of responsibility for 
these two and some others that were lost. Some 
of them were found after the regiment had reached 
Tampa, and we were ahead of the game just that 
much. 

As soon as a sufificient number of horses had 
arrived the distribution to troops began. The 
colours chosen by the different troops were as 
follows : 







DRILLING 


49 


"A" 


Troop 


Captain O'Neill 


Bays. 


u B" 




Captain McClintock 


Sorrels. 


" C" 




Captain Alexander 


Browns. 


t D" 




Captain Huston 


Grays. 


u £'» 




Captain Muller 


Sorrels. 


« F " 




Captain Luna 


Bays. 


"G" 




Captain Llewellyn 


Browns, 


''H" 




Captain Curry 


Grays. 


« J >» 




Captain McGinnis 


Browns. 


UK" 




Captain Jenkins 


Bays. 


uL'» 




Captain Capron 


Roans. 


"M" 




Captain Bruce 


Sorrels. 



There was not a troop in the regiment which 
did not have what in the Western vernacular is 
called the " rustling " spirit. The verb " to rustle " 
means not only to work hard, but to " get what 
you want " in some way or other. There was 
considerable rivalry among the troops in choosing 
horses. If one troop had a horse that looked 
likely to another, and of a sufficiently proper colour, 
the chances were that it would be found missing 
from its picket line and another found in its stead 
at the next morning stables. If not nabbed by 
some other troop the next night, another morning 
stables would find it back in its original place, 
along with several others by way of retribution. 



50 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Likewise it was wonderful how some horses of 
poor build would be found picketed out to a tree 
by themselves, with no troop to do them honour. 
A discovery of this kind would be accompanied 
by a coincident discovery by some captain that he 
had been charged with more horses than he really 
had. All this was done while there was a regi- 
mental stable guard. The difficulties were over- 
come by letting each troop have the usual stable 
guard. 

After this in each troop the men drew by lots 
for horses. Well it was for those who had the 
pick of the lot ; but it was quite different with 
those who were unlucky enough to stand low or 
lovv'cst in the list. These usually got equine 
devils, though none of the mounts were prepared 
by disposition or training to join the heavenly 
choir. Frantic efforts were made to get rid of the 
worst, and some were condemned together with a 
few pack mules that were totally unfit for paradise. 

While the squadrons were forming for squadron 
drill one day, the headquarters and staff ofHcers 
had foregathered near the picket lines. One 
trooper had been left behind by his troop, and 
was vainly trying to mount his bronco, some short 
distance away. He would put his foot in the 
stirrup and prepare to mount. But the moment 



DRILLING 51 

the horse felt the slightest weight he would 
lie gracefully down. Time after time the man 
tried to mount, at the same time looking appeal- 
ingly at Colonels Wood and Roosevelt. He was 
making a desperate play to have that horse con- 
demned, and he thought he had a golden oppor- 
tunity. Although we were all biting our lips to 
suppress our laughter none of us appeared to be 
observing the manoeuvres of the trooper and his 
horse. At length he approached Colonel Wood 
and saluted, saying : 

''Colonel, it's utterly impossible to ride this 
horse. He lies down every time I try to get on him." 

Of course the Colonel had made up his mind to 
have the animal condemned, but he answered the 
man jokingly : 

" Why, that horse looks all right. Get right on 
him." 

Quite confident that a repetition of the lying- 
down trick would convince the Colonel, the man 
made another effort to mount. The horse stood 
as rigid as a rock— and the disgusted rider gal- 
loped off to his troop. The horse, however, was 
condemned later. 

While the horses bought for the regiment were 
small as a rule, they were of the hardy, rough stock 
that stands exposure and hard work year in and 



52 FUN AND FIGHTING 

year out in the far West. They could and would 
eat almost anything. It was dismal work trying 
to fatten them, however. They will not acquire 
flesh. Their food seems to turn at once into 
energy. By a peculiar arrangement the regiment 
did possess some very fine horses, however, of a 
bluer blood. Many of the Eastern men brought 
or bought their own horses, valued up in the 
hundreds, and sold them to the government at the 
rates that were being paid by the purchasing 
board for Western horses, with the agreement, of 
course, that these horses should be assigned to 
them. By such an arrangement a private (a man 
of considerable notoriety) came to ride the finest 
horse in the regiment. 

The ability of the men to ride saved many 
months of time, and the ease with which they 
learned the mounted drill was wonderful. Regi- 
mental drill began about two weeks after the ar- 
rival of the first squadron, and was held, mounted, 
practically every day thereafter. It usually lasted 
from three to four hours, and almost always in- 
cluded a practice march. There were squadron 
and troop drills also, battle formations in bodies 
from a squad up to a regiment, and also dis- 
mounted drills and practice with the manual of 
arms. These drills, added to the unceasing duties 



DRILLING 53 

of ordinary routine work, kept the men busy from 
reveille till taps. 

The first casualties occurred in Camp Wood. 
Marshall Bird, one of the best riders in the regi- 
ment, was thrown by a runaway horse he had 
been riding bareback with a halter. The horse 
made a dash through the sally-port at a tree, 
made an abrupt halt, and Bird went on head first 
into the tree. He suffered a broken skull and 
concussion of the brain. Though his life was 
despaired of, he eventually pulled through, but 
had to be mustered out. On May 26th Irad 
Cochran died of spinal meningitis and the first 
funeral service in the regiment was conducted in 
the main building at the fair grounds, by Chaplain 
Brown. On Sundays divine service was held in 
the same building, and on one occasion the 
" Fighting Bishop " of Texas held services there, 
proclaiming earnestly that the war was a holy 
war, and bidding the men do their duty for that 
reason and not from a spirit of revenge on account 
of the destruction of the Maine. 

Toward the latter end of camp the work of the 
regiment had become fairly methodical — wonder- 
fully so considering the time the men had been 
together. Lieutenant Schwaizer relieved me as 
Regimental Quartermaster, and I was appointed 



54 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Adjutant and relieved of all other duties. At this 
time I also had the good fortune to get a sergeant 
major from the regulars. This was 1st Sergeant- 
Ernest Stecker and he was a great help. A 
regular commissary sergeant was temporarily 
assigned to the regiment and the troops were 
rationed with much more regularity and taught 
how to make their rations last to the best advan- 
tage. Our troop cooks, like all other American 
cooks, were inclined to be wasteful. The work in 
the Adjutant's office had developed, however, and 
I was in but little better shape, so far as personal 
labour was concerned, than I had been before. In 
fact there were some disadvantages. When I 
held my triple and quadruple offices the Quarter- 
master could get anything he wanted from the 
Adjutant and the Adjutant anything he wanted 
from the Quartermaster without the fear of an 
argument, disagreement, refusal — even without the 
speaking of a word. Now all this was changed. 
I soon learned that the office of adjutant was not 
a particularly desirable one, and I often envied the 
men in ranks. Hereafter when I hear of a man 
being appointed adjutant of a regiment I shall 
sympathize with him. He is the buffer between 
headquarters and the rest of the regiment, and God 
have mercy on him. It matters not how amiable 



DRILLING 55 

his superiors and inferiors in office may be, the 
adjutant is "• in for it " all around the block. To 
be sure there was a slight increase of pay over the 
ordinary pay of a 1st Lieutenant, but none of us 
volunteered for the pay, and, if I personally had, 
it would have proved a very poor business arrange- 
ment, as the campaign and the fever that followed 
cost me about twice as much as I drew from the 
government, and the fever nearly turned my toes 
to the daisies. 



CHAPTER VI 

WAITING 

The behaviour of all the men was wonderfully 
good during the trying times of organisation. 
Some things went wrong, of course, but that was 
to be expected. 

A troop commander would complain that his 
men had had no bread for two days. An investi- 
gation would discover the fact that his sergeant 
had failed to send in his bread tickets. On one 
occasion a man brought a small bunch of them to 
me that he had picked up on the parade ground. 
As there had been an unusual amount of trouble 
in the bread matter, I went to the post baker at 
Fort Sam Houston and discovered that he owed 
bread to nearly eveiy troop in the regiment. It 
was all there, they simply had not drawn it. After 
the situation was explained to the men, the vari- 
ous sergeants in charge of those matters made no 
more mistakes. 

Then the contractor who supplied the beef be- 
gan trying to turn an occasional penny by furnish- 

56 



WAITING 57 

ing meat that was not according to contract 
regulations. He had to be pulled up short. 

These matters are mentioned to show what an 
enormous amount of minutiae the few experi- 
enced officers in the regiment had to attend to. 

The regimental commander was not exempt 
himself. He even had to settle a quarrel and a 
fight between two men who were obliged to eat 
out of the same plate with the instruments that 
Nature provided before she did knives and forks. 
These men had been fast friends. The stew re- 
sulted from the eating of a stew, I believe, and 
the larger man got the best parts on his side of 
the plate. After the fight and a little cooling 
down in the guard house. Colonel Wood gave 
them a lecture, got them both to crying, and sent 
them back to their troop fast friends again. 

It was a difficult thing for the captains of the 
various troops to provide troop cooks. Practi- 
cally all of the men could cook, and cook well, 
over a camp fire when they had to do so, but 
none of them wished to take the job. The pre- 
vailing ignorance was astonishing to me, for I had 
once been a cowboy myself, and knew what a 
necessity it was for every frontiersman to know 
how to cook. 

The matter was soon explained, however. The 



58 FUN AND FIGHTING 

men wished to get all the drill they could, and if 
they were detailed as cooks they would of neces- 
sity miss more or less of the drilling. They were 
imaginative enough to fear, also, that later they 
would miss some of the fighting. On San Juan 
Hill, when every man had to cook for himself 
for a time, the sudden acquirement of a knowl- 
edge of cookery was equally amazing. 

As a matter of course the Easterners had to be 
initiated into the Ancient and Honourable Order 
of Cowboys. The main part of the initiation was 
undertaken by the various first sergeants who de- 
tailed them mercilessly on fatigue duty and put 
them at waiting on table (the dusty earth was 
usually the table) and washing dishes. The East- 
erners, club men and college men were thorough- 
breds, however, and never winced. As a result 
they won so much respect that the initiation was 
soon dropped. 

The club men and college boys had plenty of 
money, however, and they patronised a camp 
Delmonico freely. This man was the keeper of 
the grounds, and lived with his family in a house 
at the entrance or sally-port. He converted his 
residence into an eating-house, and coined money 
as he never did before in all probability. He was 
a singular character, but knew how to make hay 



WAITING 59 

while the sun shone. He was on pins and needles 
during the camp for fear that the stern hand of 
authority would forbid the men from patronising 
his extemporised establishment. Consequently 
he was most polite to headquarters, and I have to 
thank him for the loan of two lanterns, a small 
lamp, and supplies of oil and wicks for the same. 

In fear that his secret satisfaction over his busi- 
ness venture would be discovered, however, he 
never met anyone from headquarters without a 
complaint concerning the borrowing of his various 
utensils by the men, and the annoyance of their 
congregating about his house. He was v/illing, 
though, he would aver, to do anything he could 
to help the boys along ; but it was a great nuis- 
ance, etc., etc. He overdid his part, and came 
near killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. 

It was a local band that made "A Hot Time '* 
the regimental air. It was conducted by a fat, 
jolly little German who must have had that song 
on the brain, for the band never visited camp 
without playing it several times. It was a joke 
at first, but eventually matured into the regi- 
mental air. It may be said right here to the 
credit of the regiment, that several pieces of brag- 
gadocio doggerel that have been accredited to the 
Rough Riders were unknown. They were prob- 



6o FUN AND FIGHTING 

ably the creation of some journalist who never 
saw Cuba except on a map. As a matter of fact 
the men were particularly subdued, and only 
those who were familiar with the breed were 
aware of the latent devil in them when once 
properly started. 

There was no boasting in the regiment of what 
it intended to do, but rather a very strong deter- 
mination to do. Nor did the men call them- 
selves " Rough Riders." The different contin- 
gents came to camp wearing simple crimson 
badges, upon which was printed : 

1ST U. S. Volunteer Cavalry, 
Arizona Contingent ; 
or in place of " Arizona" whatever other territory 
they came from. The officers wore hatbands 
instead of badges, and I managed to beg a price- 
less souvenir of the war — the hatband of Captain 
" Bucky " O'Neill, who was killed at San Juan. 
This I sent to a little lady in the North. Two 
days before he was killed I got a letter from her 
which I read to him, and in which she said that 
she had put it around a bust of Napoleon, and 
that it was the proudest decoration Napoleon 
ever wore. 

There was a satisfied twinkle in O'NeiU's eyes 
when I read this to him ; but two days later when 



WAITING 6i 

I passed by his body at San Juan and stooped to 
raise the hat from his poor head, I couldn't read 
any satisfaction in the glazed eyes that looked 
back at me. He was of the type whose soldierly 
fault is their useless bravery — a knight of chivalry 
in the dirty brown jeans of a Rough Rider. 

There are always just so many men like him 
among American volunteers. They serve to teach 
a little common sense to the rest, they inspire 
poets, make the heart of a nation throb more 
keenly for a moment or two, and do the world 
some good by adding to its fine feeling and sym- 
pathy for their widows and children. But they 
are useless as soldiers when they are dead ; and, 
unfortunately, they take with them their thinking 
brains and influence upon their men. 

Their widows draw a pension of $20 a month, 
I believe (when they are widows of captains). It 
seems an absurdly small sum. How many little 
mouths will it feed besides a widow's ? And how 
many little bodies will it keep warm ? How many 
little minds will it educate ? 

One can get a military title by presenting the 
government with a battery of artillery. Why 
should not the same title be given to a man who 
would devote the same amount of money to help- 
ing care for the widows and orphaned children of 



62 FUN AND FIGHTING 

dead soldiers ? One thing is certain, however. 
Since this last war there will be very much less 
growling among the people about the pension list 
of the civil w^ar. Another generation has seen the 
horror of national conflict. 

The first uproar in camp of any moment, oc- 
curred when the orders came to start for Tampa. 
The regiment had been in existence less than a 
month, but already every one was filled v^ith 
typical American impatience to be off for the front. 
Europeans used to laugh at our soldiers of the 
civil war for calling themselves veterans after but 
four years of experience. They do not under- 
stand the American idea. Not a soul in the regi- 
ment cared a whit that we had had no time for 
target practice and that the guns were of a de- 
scription the men had never seen before. The 
men were expert shots, and the guns were guns, 
and, as we thought then, the best made. That 
was enough. 

But one troop was not sufficiently supplied with 
arms. This was " M " troop. None of the troops 
were supplied with machetes as had been origin- 
ally intended. Later the detail assigned to the 
Colt rapid-fire guns was armed with them, and 
from an inspection of them it was evident that we 
lost nothing by not carrying them. The speci- 



WAITING 63 

mens supplied were duller than the service sabre, 
shorter, and more unwieldy. It was supposed that 
they would be useful in cutting through Cuban 
jungles, cutting firewood, and so forth. That 
would have necessitated sharpening them, which 
is a very doubtful procedure under the laws of 
war. 

The machetes used by the Cubans were sharp- 
ened for domestic use before the war and were of 
value to them in every way but in fighting. De- 
spite all the reports in the sensational journals of 
our country the Cubans never made a real machete 
charge during the three years of their war. Ac- 
cording to Sylvester Scovil, who braved the jungles 
of Cuba and their deadly fevers for years in the 
service of the New York World, they once got 
within 70 yards of the Spanish lines in a machete 
charge and then broke and fled. That they were 
used in other ways there is but too much reason 
to believe. 

There was but one hitch in the organisation of 
the regiment. By law the Articles of War must 
be read to enlisted men within a specified time 
after their enlistment. In the pell-mell haste this 
was forgotten. Captain Llewellyn called the at- 
tention of headquarters to the fact, and the 
articles were promptly read by the several squad- 



64 FUN AND FIGHTING 

ron commanders to their squadrons, probably to 
the intense disgust of the perspiring men who had 
to stand at attention and listen. Undoubtedly 
they would one and all have been willing to take 
a single word for the deed. They all possessed 
the average American's dislike for red tape. 

On account of this oversight it is probable that 
no man in the regiment could properly be court- 
martialled afterwards. It is to the everlasting 
credit of the men in ranks that no one ever thought 
of availing himself of the opportunity. It is pos- 
sible that if any men had deserted they could not 
have been punished legally. In fact the very few 
men who did desert left the regiment at San 
Antonio, at Tampa, or while en route from the 
former station to the latter. 



CHAPTER VII 

EN ROUTE TO TAMPA 

The orders to proceed to Tampa were received 
on the 28th of May, 1898, but a trifle over three 
weeks after the arrival of the first contingent. 
Preparations were immmediately commenced to 
break camp and take train early on the next morn- 
ing. A contract was made with a series of con- 
necting railroads that agreed to get us to Tampa 
in three days, furnishing good accommodations 
for men, officers, horses and baggage and plenty 
of opportunity to water the horses en route. The 
roads kept their contract in hardly any particular. 

Early on the morning of the 29th, camp was 
broken, and during the day the squadrons in turn 
were marched to the stockyards over a road ankle 
deep in dust and hot with the summer sun of 
Texas. Each squadron policed its camp before 
moving, burning all refuse and leaving the fair 
grounds in as good a condition as they were when 
turned over to us. Upon the arrival of the first 
squadron it was discovered that the first of the five 
S 6s 



66 FUN AND FIGHTING 

sections of cars which was to move the regiment 
had not yet been made up, and the cars for the 
other sections had not yet been switched to the 
yards. 

A long, tiresome wait resulted, and it was after- 
noon before the first section pulled out. The 
sleeping car for the officers of the first section was 
on a side track, however, and those who were to 
go on this section had an opportunity to clean up 
before the start, a welcome opportunity, for it had 
been a continual fight to keep clean in Camp 
Wood. It was a buffet car, too, and we sat down 
to a moderately civilized lunch for the first time 
since we had left the San Antonio hotel. The 
buffet car was provisioned for three days, and as 
no preparations were made to renew the supply 
we had to " hustle for our grub " later in the trip. 

Colonel Wood and headquarters went with the 
first section, with the exception of Colonel Roose- 
velt, who came on with the last and spurred it on 
with his accustomed energy. The first section 
left the others far behind at first ; but they all 
caught up, and at Tampa piled in one on top of 
the other, so that the entire regiment arrived the 
same afternoon and night at its destination. 

Each section was composed of a number of 
stock-cars for the horses, and of baggage-cars and 



EN ROUTE TO TAMPA 6^ 

day-coaches for the men, who were crowded into 
them unmercifully but who made no complaint. 
They were so worried for fear they would not get 
to Cuba that they were willing to put up with any 
amount of discomfort. Most of the sections had a 
sleeping car attached for the officers. Some had 
not, however, and the officers slept on their camp 
bedding in the baggage cars. 

The men were supplied with the ordinary travel 
ration and the adjutant of each squadron was 
given "■ coffee money " with which to buy hot 
coffee at various points. It was the first experience 
of most of the men with the travel ration, and 
they got their eye teeth cut on that particular kind 
of food. Most of the money they had with them 
went for other and better food, and the hardtack 
was given away in great quantities en route as 
souvenirs. It was the regiment's first experience, 
too, with the water question, for the tanks in the 
cars did not hold enough, and the parched-throated 
men would go hours in the intense heat without 
water. They were kept in their cars, too, under 
strict orders to the sentries at the doors, except 
when they were needed to help water horses. 
Their patience under such conditions was won- 
derful. 

Throughout Texas the trip was an ovation. 



6?> FUN AND FIGHTING 

Through every town we passed most of the popu- 
lation turned out to see us. It was a continuous 
performance v/ith every number much the same. 
The young girls of the various towns dressed in 
white were ranged along the depot platforms and 
pelted men and officers alike with flowers, while 
the citizens seldom forgot that the men might be 
hungry. 

An entire cake would be traded for a couple of 
hardtack with satisfaction to both parties. Flirta- 
tions resulted, of course, and I would not like to 
guess at the number of buttons missing from the 
uniforms when the regiment arrived at Tampa or 
even at New Orleans. At one place where we 
stopped to water horses one officer was discovered 
playing the gallant to no less than thirteen young 
ladies. It was an unlucky number, for he was a 
married man, and the other officers promptly in- 
formed the girls to that effect, to the disgust of the 
officer and the prompt retirement of the girls. 

At another place, and one of some considerable 
importance, the belle of the town walked down 
the line of cars between her father and mother, 
who were the most influential people in the town. 
A group of officers were playing cards in the sleep- 
ing car, but being informed that the belle of the 
town was en evidence^ stopped to take a look at 



EN ROUTE TO TAMPA 69 

her as she passsed, holding their cards meanwhile 
very close to their shirt fronts, for they were not 
playing " old maid." The young lady upon per- 
ceiving the cards assumed a look of great disgust and 
exclaimed, "Well, I don't see how any good can 
come from men who would do that." The ofificers 
were nonplussed. But the words were spoken 
mainly for parental delight. As soon as the trio 
had passed the window she turned slyly, smiled, 
and threw a kiss to the officers, and they serenely 
continued their game. 

The storming of the cars with flowers was so 
general that the men and cars alike were soon 
flower bedecked. The flowers were worn in each 
buttonhole, pinned to the coat, stuck in the hatband 
and carried in the hand. It was a royal send-off 
that Texas gave the Rough Riders. It will never 
be forgotten. She could have done no more for 
her own sons. 

At New Orleans many of the men saw the 
Mississippi for the first time. Here a long stop 
was made to water horses at the stockyards, and 
every one who had money got more or less of a 
chance for a square meal. 

Before the first section pulled out of New 
Orleans the second section pulled in. They had 
had a rougher trip than the first section but had 



70 FUN AND FIGHTING 

made better time. As the first section passed 
through the outskirts of the city, it was greeted 
by cheers from the people who Hned the track and 
by waving handkerchiefs from every window. 

One old grey-headed woman stood by the track 
and shouted, " God bless you, boys," as each car 
passed her. From New Orleans on, we were still 
the subject of some curiosity but the ovation 
ceased as if by command. Whether this was due 
to memories of the '' late unpleasantness " be- 
tween North and South or to the actions of the 
regiment that preceded us on the rails this de- 
ponent saith not. Indeed he knoweth not. 

The run through the Eastern Gulf States was 
devoid of much incident but was particularly hard 
on men and animals. There were few stations 
where the horses could be watered ; and, where 
there were means to do so, they were crude and 
inadequate. On some occasions it took six hours 
and more to feed and water. The country was 
equally disappointing to our commissariat, for the 
buffet had about given out and the officers were 
getting hungry. We bought what we could, but 
as a rule that was not much. There had been 
plenty of time to re-stock the buffet car at New 
Orleans, but the sleeping-car people had not both- 
ered to do so. 



EN ROUTE TO TAMPA 71 

We were now in the hands of the railroads, and 
began to really appreciate their importance and 
our own utter insignificance. To add to the vexa- 
tions of the really suffering men the train ran 
slower and slower, and there were more frequent 
delays. And at nearly every stop the second sec- 
tion would pull in behind us and tell us that the 
third section had been sighted by them but a 
trifle in the rear. 

At one stop we had an amusing experience with 
our morphine fiend. His supply of the drug had 
run out, and he v/as in more or less agony. He 
was a doctor in civil life, though but a trooper with 
us, and he took the opportunity of a long stop to 
hire a boy to take a prescription to town — the 
prescription being of course for morphine. The 
boy got the morphine, but returning to the train 
with it forgot which car contained his patron. 
He inquired for the doctor and was sent to Dr. 
La Motte, the ranking surgeon of the regiment. 
The doctor was of course amazed on receiving the 
package of morphine, but shrewdly suspected what 
was the matter. A watch was immediately set 
over the man. He, too, guessed what had hap- 
pened, called to the boy, gave him another pre- 
scription and sent him on a repetition of the 
errand. This time the boy was collared on his 



72 FUN AND FIGHTING 

return and the morphine taken away from him. 
The man was eventually dismissed. 

The prevailing quiet with which the regiment 
was received on its trip east from New Orleans 
was broken at Tallahassee, Florida. Here the 
regiment stopped for the better part of a day, it 
being necessary to take the horses from the cars 
in order to water them. The citizens of the town 
entertained many of the officers, and the men 
were well received, too. In fact every one got a 
good square meal here, a " real cooked meal," the 
cooking being done over camp fires. Fresh meat 
and vegetables were easily obtained and much 
latent ability in the culinary art was discovered. 

Between Tallahassee and Tampa there was but 
one incident worthy of mention. During one of 
the numerous and seemingly unnecessary stops a 
farmer drove alongside the train with a load of 
watermelons that he was peddling. The men 
bought them eagerly. A sudden start necessitated 
a quick return of the men to the cars, and as many 
as five melons, perhaps, were unpaid for. At the 
time the farmer did not seem to mind this fact. 
Indeed he seemed exceedingly pleased at the 
thriving business he had done. No doubt his 
friends showed him later how he could acquire a 
fortune by one bold stroke, for he magnified the 



EN ROUTE TO TAMPA 73 

occurrence and sent a bill to Washington for 
something in the neighbourhood of $150, which 
would not only have paid for all the melons he had 
but for his waggon and horse, harness and clothes, 
and perhaps raised the mortgage on his farm. 

It is not of record that he got any satisfaction, 
though the bill was forwarded by the War De- 
partment to the commanding officer of the regi- 
ment, who explained the matter. As a matter 
of fact the writer is not at all certain that there was 
a single melon taken that was not paid for. It 
is extremely frigid weather when the innocent 
citizen of these United States loses an oppor- 
tunity to make a claim against Uncle Sam, if he 
has the ghost of a basis for the claim. And it 
was almost tropical in Florida at this time. 

All throughout the weary journey through the 
South the men and officers diverted themselves 
with singing, about the only amusement they 
could get except smoking. With the men in the 
cars ahead "John Brown's Body" was the fa- 
vourite, and the way that song was sung was some- 
thing to remember. It drowned the roar of the 
engine and the rattle of the cars, and must have 
awakened memories even in the silent woods and 
swamps. 

The favourite songs among the officers were 



74 FUN AND FIGHTING 

'' On the Road To Mandalay" and '' The Little 
Black Sheep," so we carried Kipling with us. 
These songs were introduced by Lieutenant Hal 
Sayre of Harvard, who had left college within two 
months of certain graduation to become a Rough 
Rider. Young, slight, and apparently delicate, 
Sayre had the pluck of a football captain. He 
was one of the first of the officers to purchase a 
mount and he got a particularly vicious one. 
The first time he tried to ride the animal at San 
Antonio it flung him very prettily. The men yelled 
with delight. They were not at that time partic- 
ularly pleased at the idea of being officered by 
any one from the East with the exception of 
Colonels Wood and Roosevelt. But Sayre calmly 
mounted the animal again and conquered it, for 
which he was roundly cheered. He had charge 
of the transfer of horses from Fort Sam Houston 
to the camp and was in the saddle most of the 
time. He usually started before breakfast and 
seldom got back until after supper. Where or 
when he ate was a mystery. I know where he 
slept. He would curl up in his saddle blanket 
on a pile of hay and sleep without removing 
clothes, shoes or leggings. He was an influential 
man in his class and induced a great many Har- 
vard men to enter the regiment. 



EN ROUTE TO TAMPA 75 

The officers had intended to sing the " Suwanee 
River " when they crossed that stream, which is as 
inseparably conected with the song as the Danube 
is with the famous waltz. But they found that it 
would be crossed in the small hours of the morn- 
ing and most of them went to sleep. Not so 
with Lieutenant Weakley of " F " Troop. He 
had strong ideas on the subject of '' fitting occa- 
sions" and he remained awake. Just before the 
stream was crossed he awakened the sleepers, and 
the yawning and perhaps swearing officers sang 
the song. 

It has been stated that the horses were neg- 
lected on this trip. It was one of the first criti- 
cisms made on the regiment when it reached 
Tampa. Such was not the case. The welfare of 
the horses was insisted on, and they were disem- 
barked at Tampa looking almost as well as they 
did at San Antonio. When bought they were 
fresh from the range and most of them lean and 
gaunt. There had been no time to fatten them, 
and as a matter of fact it is almost impossible to 
fatten that kind of horse under any circumstances. 
I have seen it tried by putting them for months 
at a time in a cavalry stable and feeding and 
treating them precisely as the regular cavalry 
mounts were treated, and they were practically 



76 FUN AND FIGHTING 

as lean when they were removed as when they 
entered. 

The only thing a Western horse stores up is 
kinetic energy. Where he keeps it is a mystery, 
but that it is there any one can swear who has 
tried to ride one after a month's rest. He not only 
can swear but he will eloquently, artistically, 
emphatically. There were a great many young 
men (and some old ones) around Tampa who 
didn't know what they were talking about. 



CHAPTER VIII 

IN CAMP AT TAMPA 

The first section of the multiple train bearing 
the Rough Riders reached Tampa on the after- 
noon of June 2d and had its first experience 
with the amazing incompetency with which 
matters military were run in that now historic 
little town almost immediately. We slowed down 
in a tangle of cars a couple of miles from the 
depot. Colonel Wood had telegraphed the time 
of our arrival to headquarters, but there was no 
one to meet us, not even a messenger to tell us 
where to go or where we would find facilities for 
unloading our horses. 

After waiting until his patience was exhausted 

the Colonel walked into town. While he was 

gone a number of cavalry officers, representatives 

from the headquarters of the Cavalry Division, 

including, I think. Generals Wheeler and Sumner, 

rode down to us. They concluded that it was too 

late to put us in the camp selected for us that 

77 



78 FUN AND FIGHTING 

night, so we were pushed back to a corral in the 
suburbs of the town and began disembarking. 

A camping ground was selected on the left of 
the corral, and the baggage was hustled from the 
baggage cars in short order. With equal despatch 
the horses of the first section were led from the 
cars and picketed to ground ropes stretched 
between stumps of trees. We had fortunately 
carried with us an extra supply of hay and grain, 
and there was just about enough to go around ; 
so the horses were watered and given a good 
square meal at once. Section after section now 
piled in and the work of unloading w^as going on 
nearly all night. Few of the men got any rest 
at all. 

In the morning there was a skirmish for drink- 
ing water v/hich was eventually obtained at some 
of the isolated houses in the neighbourhood. 
Many of the officers got a breakfast, such as it 
was, at a Casino about half a mile distant. 

It was comparatively late in the morning when 
camp was broken. The horses of the various 
troops were necessarily mixed up more or less, 
and Colonel Roosevelt had lost track of his two 
chargers entirely. They were sorted out event- 
ually and the pack train loaded with what it 
could carry of the regiment's impedimenta — which 



IN CAMP AT TAMPA 79 

was not much. The rest was left on the cars in 
charge of a guard. Nearly all the rations brought 
with us were thus left, it being supposed we 
would have no difficulty in getting teams from 
headquarters to transport them to camp, the exact 
location of which we did not then know. 

Lieutenant Weakley (he of the Suwanee River 
** fitting occasion ") was one of the officers left in 
charge of the guard over the stores. It was not 
until the next day that teams were procured, and 
just as they arrived the engineer of the train re- 
ceived orders to take it from that point and 
abandon it. Weakley drew his revolver and per- 
suaded the engineer in a manner more forcible 
than polite to remain where he was until the cars 
v/ere entirely unloaded. He was a very efficient 
officer but had the ill luck to be left behind at 
Tampa when the two favoured squadrons went to 
Cuba. 

Camp being broken the regiment formed, 
marched into Tampa and through it to Tampa 
Bay, past the Tampa Bay Hotel v/here head 
quarters of the entire command was situated, and 
on to the headquarters of the Cavalry Division. 
On the march the regiment was wildly cheered by 
apparently an entire regiment of foot soldiers who 
were standing on top of several trains of freight 



So FUN AND FIGHTING 

cars about a quarter of a mile away. It was some 
New York Regiment, and with all New York 
Regiments the Rough Riders were popular on 
Roosevelt's account. 

At Division headquarters Captain Steele of the 
Division Staff guided us to the camping ground, 
which was a level stretch of sandy ground dotted 
with the carcasses of defunct cows and horses. 
The regiment was halted in column of fours, 
column of troops was formed from the halt and 
the troop picket lines stretched immediately in 
front of the troops as they stood after dismount- 
ing. The little shelter tents of each troop were 
pitched midway between the picket line of the 
troop and that next in rear. Field officers' 
quarters and headquarters were established on the 
left flank. The camp soon looked all right from 
a distance, save that headquarters of the regiment 
and of the different squadrons were represented 
only by saddles and bridles. 

There was now another hustle for water to 
drink and a far greater hustle for something to 
eat. Colonel Wood and the Quartermaster took 
the most active part in the hustle for the latter, 
but it was not until late in the afternoon that they 
managed to get waggons and send rations back to 
the men. In the meantime various officers sent 



IN CAMP AT TAMPA 8i 

into town and bought enough for the men to 
lunch on. Headquarters had nothing to eat and 
had to beg of the men. That night I slept in my 
saddle blanket with my saddle for a pillow. I 
did not need the strains of reveille to wake me. 
The next day, however, our tenting, which con- 
sisted of waggon sheets, arrived with our baggage, 
and with it the one condemned tent that we used 
for an Adjutant's Office. After that we were as 
comfortable as possible under the circumstances. 

It was a sorry camping place. The dry sandy 
soil was almost devoid of grass. It was filled with 
minute pieces of charcoal, the remnants of forest 
fires, that blackened everything that came in con- 
tact with them. It was oppressively hot in the 
daytime, but at night the mosquitoes were not 
quite so bad as at San Antonio. Our horses had 
to be watered at the troughs of other cavalry 
regiments some distance away, and drinking and 
cooking water, in fact all water, had to be brought 
from quite a distance. Water-pipes were laid in a 
few days, troughs constructed, and the camp was 
beginning to get into very fair shape when the 
major part of the regiment was ordered to Cuba. 
In this camp, too, the company kitchens were put 
on a satisfactory basis, the food was better cooked 
and the cooks had learned how to make it go 



82 FUN AND FIGHTING 

further. We learned soon after our arrival that 
we had been brigaded with the ist and loth Cav- 
alry and with them formed the 2d Brigade of the 
Cavalry Division of the 5th corps, General Young 
commanding our brigade and General Wheeler the 
Division. The other two regiments and brigade 
headquarters were at Lakeside, and we did not 
actually join our brigade until we arrived at Dai- 
quiri, Cuba. 

The camps of all other regiments at Tampa were 
open to visitors, and one could cross a sentry post 
anywhere. It was absolutely necessary that no 
time be wasted in the instruction of the men of 
our regiment in guard duty, however, and the 
strictest guard discipline was maintained by Col- 
onel Wood's express orders. Visitors were per- 
mitted to enter and leave camp only at the guard 
tent, and then they had to have written permission. 
At night the sentries were furnished with ball 
cartridges and ordered to fire in case their orders 
to halt and their challenges were not properly and 
promptly obeyed and answered. The men were 
nothing loath to shoot and strollers gave us a 
wide berth. 

Newspaper correspondents, artists and photog- 
raphers were supplied with written passes. Fred- 
erick Remington, when handed his, remarked that 



IN CAMP AT TAMPA 83 

it was the first time he ever had to get a pass to 
enter a camp of American soldiers. He also de- 
clared that the regiment looked just like any other 
regiment of cavalry, vv^hich was something of a 
compliment, but expressed his disappointment at 
not finding any types. He would have found 
plenty of types if he had looked more carefully. 
In fact he eventually did. 

Women were forbidden the camp, the only ex- 
ceptions that I knovv^ of being the v/ife of one of 
our majors, the wife of our Lieutenant-Colonel 
and a friend of hers who v/as the wife of one of 
our troopers. A female newspaper correspondent 
stormed our works ; indeed she not only stormed 
but raved, but she did not get in. 

Drills were immediately resumed, but for the 
first few days the men did much worse both at 
drills and at guard mounting than they had at San 
Antonio. The difficulty v/as that they Vv'ere in the 
presence of the regulars^nd had a wholesale attack 
of stage fright. This soon wore off. At almost 
every drill we were watched by the military at- 
taches of the foreign governments who seemed es- 
pecially interested in this queer body of American 
Cossacks. They wanted everything explained to 
them and took numerous photographs. 

The pack train was a mystery to the smartest of 



84 FUN AND FIGHTING 

them and the throwing of the " Diamond hitch" 
quite bewildering — which it is to every one who is 
not an expert packer. They were, however, all 
greatly impressed by the rough and ready appear- 
ance of both camp and men and were generous in 
their compliments. They agreed that the regiment 
looked much more like business than the regulars, 
and they were not backward about saying so. 

To the men of our regiment the regulars seemed 
a favoured people. They had more to eat than we 
had and more variety. They lived in tents many 
of which had board floors, and their camps were 
marvels of neatness and propriety Their horses 
were big, strong and fat ; they had bands to amuse 
them, they did not drill as much as we did and 
their men could go to town almost whenever they 
wanted to and '' had the price." There was no 
grumbling however, merely a slight surprise. 

Officers' school and school for the non-commis- 
sioned officers had been started at San Antonio. 
Captain Capron taught the former and the com- 
pany commanders, the latter. Capron taught of 
guard duty, outpost duty, advance and rear guard 
duty and something of minor tactics. The cap- 
tains taught guard duty and drill regulations to 
their subordinates. 

The photograph fiends were omnipresent, and 



IN CAMP AT TAMPA 85 

the regiment was photographed almost as many 
times as, afterwards, it was shot at. The men were 
photographed, standing, sitting and lying down, 
awake and sleeping, eating, chewing, smoking, talk- 
ing, walking, riding, washing, shaving, and I know 
not what not. 

Up to this time headquarters had messed with 
the 1st Squadron (Major Brodie's). The regimen- 
tal mess was now established. Colonel Wood, for 
some reason which I have never been able to ex- 
plain, was exceedingly opposed to the stocking of 
this mess with a sufficient amount of provisions 
to last more than a few days at a time. Colonel 
Roosevelt saw the possibility of a small famine 
ahead in Cuba, and took an opposite view and the 
responsibility of buying a sufficient supply of food 
and the hiring of a negro cook. 

We were sadly disturbed about this time by 
many rumours. The regiment had arrived at the 
'' rumour belt," which it did not leave until it was 
disbanded. Some said that we were not to go 
with the expedition at all. Others declared that 
but one squadron was to go. Others heard that 
two squadrons were to go. Many of the regulars 
took an especial delight in assuring our men that 
they were to be left behind. The wish was no 
doubt father to the thought. 



86 FUN AND FIGHTING 

The regiment had been advertised and wrltten-up 
by its friends and enemies not wisely but too well. 
All hail to the regulars and their marvellous record 
— but they were professionals, and it was strange 
that they were (some of them) jealous of mere 
amateurs. 

How much this had to do with our not being 
paid promptly, I do not know. But it is a fact 
that most, perhaps all, of the other regiments 
were paid off, and tha.t when it came the turn of the 
Rough Riders, there was no m.ore money in the 
hands of the paymasters. Not a cent had been 
paid to the regiment so far. The money brought 
by the majority of the men had been spent long 
since. There were many purchases to be made be- 
fore the regiment could embark with any degree 
of comfort, especially in the way of extra food on 
the transport. The regiment had had one experi- 
ence with the travel ration and did not fancy an- 
other if by any means it could be avoided. There 
was also a natural desire on the part of every one 
to " send money home." 

In this predicament our two Colonels held a 
conference with the paymasters, and it v.^as learned 
that sufficient funds to pay the regiment for the 
month of May could be obtained by telegraph if 
the regiment would pay the expense of telegraph- 



IN CAMP AT TAMPA 87 

ing the money. The regiment was quite wiUing 
and the money was collected in a few minutes 
from the officers. This was June 8th and the regi- 
ment was paid off that night in the natatorium on 
the grounds of the Tampa Bay Hotel. The muster 
rolls had been made out in a great hurry and in 
many instances by officers who had no experience 
in making them out, and there was many a man 
who did not " get all that was coming to him." 

While the regiment was being paid off orders 
were received by Colonel Wood to take two 
squadrons of the regiment that night for embarka- 
tion at Port Tampa. We were to be at the rail- 
road at ten o'clock that night for transportation to 
the port, and it was already dusk. The result 
was one of the regiment's characteristic hustles. 
The troops designated to go were '' A," '' B," 
u j3^- u £^- u y;* ^' G," '' K," and " L," which 
meant three troops each of the 1st and 2d squad- 
rons and two of the 3d. We were to go dis- 
mounted, as were all the other cavalry regiments 
in the division. They also took but two squad- 
rons each. As we were by far the largest regi 
ment of cavalry at the time, the strength of our 
two squadrons was about equal to that of an entire 
regular regiment. Colonel Roosevelt was detailed 
to accompany the regiment in command of the 



88 FUN AND FIGHTING 

1st squadron, Major Brodie's squadron becom- 
ing the second, by virtue of Colonel Roosevelt's 
rank. 

Despite the haste necessitated by the inop- 
portune but welcome order, the regiment was 
ready to march in but little over an hour. Then 
followed a tiresome, nerve-straining wait. No 
transportation had been furnished for our impedi- 
menta. In this difficulty the 2d Cavalry, which 
had camped beside us, came to our rescue with 
their regimental waggons, which they generously 
loaned to us. They did not belong to our divi- 
sion, and but one squadron of theirs was to ac- 
company the expedition. This was the only 
mounted squadron that went, and was already on 
board a transport. 

The breaking up of the regiment in this way 
was a very painful affair. The officers and men 
who were to be left behind were inconsolable. 
Two majors were left — Hersey and Dunn — and 
the former was particularly grieved, as he brought 
the largest contingent to the regiment, — four solid 
troops from New Mexico. Lieutenant Sayre and 
Dr. Massie were speechless with disappointment, 
as was Lieutenant Weakley, who had distinguished 
himself by "holding up " our baggage train. In 
a few minutes the disappointed officers and men 



IN CAMP AT TAMPA 89 

concluded to postpone their expressions of grief 
and help the lucky ones off, which they did with 
an energy that would have reflected credit on a 
regiment that had been in existence for genera- 
tions. They helped us break camp, supplied us 
with an extra meal, and attended to hundreds of 
personal missions, the latter being mostly in the 
nature of sending the first '' soldier money " home 
—at least the greater part of it. 

Two orders were given that caused some con- 
sternation. One was that neither axes, pickaxes 
or spades were to be taken. The captains received 
this order in silent astonishment. It was a mis- 
take, no doubt, as Colonel Wood afterwards ex- 
pressed the greatest surprise that the troops were 
not provided with these absolutely necessary 
implements. The regiment afterwards provided 
itself with them in a manner characteristic of the 
far West. They had not learned to '' rustle" and 
*' hustle " for nothing. 

By the other order the sergeant-major was left 
behind and with him the regimental reports, blanks, 
and papers. As he is the most important non- 
commissioned of^cer in a regiment and, for that 
matter, one of the most important ofificers, the 
writer was terribly handicapped through the entire 
campaign. But he knew enough to say nothing, 



90 FUN AND FIGHTING 

and had lived long enough to learn the necessity 
of making the best of things. He knew from 
schooling that the regimental m.orning report 
would be wanted every morning as soon as Vv'c 
joined our brigade, that muster rolls were an ab- 
solute necessity and many other papers too. But 
he went aboard ship without pens, ink, or paper, 
and trusted to luck. The troops took nothing 
but their field morning reports. Many of these 
were afterwards lost. 

But seventy men v/ere taken from each troop, so 
that as a matter of actual fact miore than one 
squadron was left in Tampa, as were the horses 
and extra baggage. Just before leaving a detail 
was made by orders direct from General Shafter 
to take charge of a dynamite gun that was at- 
tached to the regiment. This sv.-elled the list of 
men to go, and gave us three pieces of artillery 
instead of two. The dynamite gun was heavy 
and cumbersome, and the two Colt guns were 
for defensive use, being mounted on heavy tri- 
pods and not accompanied by any easy means of 
transportation. All three were practically useless 
during the campaign, though if we had been put 
on the defensive they might have proved of great 
value. Private Hallett Alsop Barrowe was by the 
same order made an " acting" sergeant and put 



IN CAMP AT TAMPA 91 

in command of the dynamite gun, Sergeant Reber 
being second in command. 

If the behaviour of the men at San Antonio vv'as 
wonderfully good (and it was), their behaviour 
at Tampa was beyond praise. They were kept 
rigidly in camp and continually at work. An 
incident of camp will illustrate the attitude of the 
men. 

Three orderlies were constantly on duty, 
mounted, at regimental headquarters. One hot 
afternoon one of these orderlies came to me with 
a most aggrieved expression on his face, and made 
a complaint. His complaint was that one of the 
other two orderlies had taken post but a few feet 
away from headquarters, instead of the designated 
place for the orderlies v/hen awaiting duty, and by 
this means had been able to get all the errands to 
do to the manifest injustice of the other orderly 
and himself. 

When men are so anxious to work as all that, 
they must be something out of the common. I put 
my wits to work to increase the number of errands 
that afternoon, and saw that there was fair play. 
I cannot recollect the number of times I sent to 
the Quartermaster for a canteen full of iced water, 
but I continued until he threw up his hands in 
despair and would let me have no more. 



CHAPTER IX 

EN ROUTE TO CUBA 

About ten o'clock that night we started for the 
cars, crossing two railroad tracks on the way. The 
remaining regiments of cavalry were already there 
and had taken possession of all the trains and 
cars at the point. Colonel Wood was informed 
that another train would be backed down for us. 
The order was given therefore to unload the 
waggons. They were hauled up alongside the 
tracks and unloaded by the tired and nervous men. 
The unloading was not quite completed when we 
heard that we were to embark on one of the tracks 
we had crossed. The unloading was stopped and 
the waggons held for future developments, while 
officers were despatched to find our train. At a 
distance we could see several trains backing down. 

In the meantime the men lay down in ranks 
with their blanket rolls, haversacks and cartridge 
belts in place and got a chance for a little sleep. 
It was the most picturesque sight of the regi- 
ment's life thus far, and the sleeping squadrons in 
92 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA 93 

their carefully aligned ranks looked more like 
grim-visaged war than anything I had ever seen. 
The officers as a rule kept awake, smoked and 
chatted. The thinking parts of a war machine 
usually get less sleep than the working parts. 

In the meantime headquarters began to get 
nervous, and it looked very much as though we 
were to be the victims of an " accident " by which 
we would be left behind. At that time the regi- 
ment's company on the campaign was not eagerly 
sought — a fact that we had only too much reason 
to appreciate. The meanest remark I heard made 
during the campaign was made right here. An 
officer of one of the cavalry regiments of the 1st 
brigade stopped as he was about to get into a car, 
turned to a group of our men (privates) who were 
on the detail that had been unloading waggons and 
who were waiting further orders, and remarked 
with a sneer : 

" Oh you needn't worry. Your regiment is not 
going. You're not wanted." 

It is to be hoped that the men had philosophy 
enough to understand that men who are sneered 
at or blackguarded must necessarily amount to 
enough to make it worth while for another to vent 
his spite on them. 

Eventually Colonel Wood was informed that a 



94 FUN AND FIGHTING 

train would be backed down for us on the track 
last mentioned, though all novv^ on it were for in- 
fantry regiments in that vicinity. Consequently 
rations and ammunition had to be reloaded on the 
waggons and the regiment had to retrace its steps. 
It was almost morning when we reached our sec- 
ond stopping place, and we were one and all tired 
out, hungry, sleepy and disgusted. Colonel Wood, 
Captain McCormick (an officer of the 7th Cavalry 
who had been attached to the regiment) and my- 
self sat on a pile of telegraph poles just back of 
one of the recently deserted infantry camps and 
waited for morning and our train. 

About daybreak the 5th Cavalry, which we had 
not seen since they left San Antonio before we did 
(to our great mortification at the time), marched 
into this camp. They were feeling worse than we 
did as they had no expectation of going with the 
army of invasion at all, and eventually did not. 
The men of this regiment passed us and repassed 
us time and again without so much as the sem-- 
blance of a salute, until I finally asked Captain Mc-- 
Cormick, jokingly, if they had ceased to salute in' 
the regular army. The Captain had been getting: 
mad about it, himself, and he promptly called a 
number of them to account, made them walk back, , 
pass again and salute. 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA 95 

As a matter of fact discipline in the regular 
army is not by any means as strict as it used to 
be. The difficulty of recruiting good men and 
the ease with which they can buy their discharge 
is mainly responsible for this. If the men of a 
troop happen to take a dislike to an officer twenty 
or thirty of them can, and sometimes do, promptly 
buy their discharge in a body, crippling the troop 
and giving the officer an official black eye which 
may not be at all deserved. 

As the morning cleared we found that we were 
but a short distance from the camp we left the 
night before and in plain sight of it. At reveille 
our astonished comrades in camp discovered us 
and thoughtfully prepared coffee for us. While 
the regiment was snatching a hasty breakfast a 
train of empty coal cars was backed down and we 
were informed that this was to take us to Port 
Tampa. The regiment was neither proud nor 
haughty, and it climbed into that train, bag and 
baggage, with more enthusiasm than decorum. 

The men were acting on the theory that it was 
better to have our hard luck first. In spite of all 
obstacles and delays the regiment began to feel 
that it really was going to take part in the cam- 
paign. Long before the regiment had decided 
that there would be but one campaign of any im- 



96 FUN AND FIGHTING 

portance in the war and that a short one. Such 
eventually proved to be the fact. 

The trip was a short one, and the men, now in 
royal good humour, cheered everything in sight. 
Pulling into the station yards, which were a mass 
of cars, baggage and waiting troops, we passed a 
train bearing the 71st New York Volunteers in 
the same direction. They lustily cheered Colonel 
Roosevelt, who was obliged to go to the door of 
the baggage car in Avhich the officers rode and 
bow. 

On reaching the port our two Colonels went to 
headquarters to find out to what ship we had been 
assi^-ned — and discovered that we had not been 
assigned to any. Then Colonel Roosevelt let 
loose a little energy, exhibiting a large supply of 
reserve force of the same simultaneously, and we 
were assigned to the Yucatan at the expense of 
the hereinbefore mentioned 71st, which was shifted 
to another vessel. The Colonels learned, too, that 
the 2d infantry was to take the same ship, and to 
make assurance doubly sure Cplonel Wood put out 
in a boat to the Yucatan and boarded it. With him 
was Major LaMotte our ranking surgeon (an offi- 
cer of the Navy on leave of absence), who made 
an immediate inspection of the ship and turned 
in a report couched in so many naval terms that 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA 97 

it was almost unintelligible to those of us who 
were land lubbers. 

He also made an assignment of staterooms to 
the officers of the two regiments which I had to 
make over again to satisfy the officers of the 2d 
infantry. Dr. LaMotte, with pardonable loyalty, 
had given us the better of the arrangement. As 
Colonel Wood ranked the commanding officer of 
our compagnons de voyage he assumed command of 
all the troops on board. The assignment to seats 
at table was also an embarrassing affair, as there 
were not seats enough to go around. 

Bunks had been provided for the men in the 
hold of the ship, and they were about the crudest 
affairs imaginable. The heat in the hold was 
stifling, and by Colonel Wood's thoughtful order 
as many men were quartered on deck as the decks 
would hold. This left little or no room for the 
officers to move about, but, of course, there was no 
complaint. 

We were now known as *' Wood's Weary 
Walkers " rather than " Roosevelt's Rough Rid- 
ers," as the story of our all-night marching and 
countermarching had become common property. 
Guard was mounted regularly on board ship, drills, 
mainly in the manual of arms, were instituted 
twice daily for our regiment, and officers' school 
7 



98 FUN AND FIGHTING 

opened again. The regiment was going to a fight 
and learning how to fight at the same time. 

The very first guard discovered two interesting 
stowaways. These were two boys. They had 
beaten their way from some remote part of the 
country, one from the East and the other from 
the West. They had provided themselves with 
guns, and were intent on shooting Spaniards in 
large numbers. One of them, with a business 
instinct that will some day make him a millionaire, 
had peddled small articles of use to soldiers 
through the various camps until he had amassed 
a sum sufficient to buy a death-dealing gun. The 
other, I believe, came to Tampa provided v/ith 
money. Both were now " dead broke " and ex- 
pected to earn their passage working for the men. 
They were two pitiful looking objects as they 
stood with a six-foot guard over them, and there 
was not an officer who did not wish they could go 
along. But there were four parents to be consid- 
ered in the matter, and the weeping boys had to 
leave the ship. Other boys tried the same thing 
on other ships, and some got to Cuba. Young 
' America was quite enthusiastic over the war. 

Like our " man with the melons " the servants 
on the ship discovered an opportunity to make a 
fortune easily out of this trip, and they sold every- 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA 99 

thing but their souls to the men at outrageously 
high prices. Their souls would have been sold too, 
but they were sadly out of repair, and no one 
wanted them. Whisky brought them about $5 
a bottle, I have been told, and brought the men 
that bought it trouble. Sandwiches and other 
eatables brought fabulous prices, but it was ice 
and iced water that brought the greatest returns — 
all profit, of course, as the ice was furnished for 
the officers. This latter item came to the ears of 
the commanding officer, but no action was taken 
in the matter, as the men really needed the ice, 
and to a certain extent money was no object. 

The regiment now became " Woeful Waiters," 
for it was days before the order was given to steam 
away from Tampa. Some naval officer thought 
he had discovered a part of Cervera's squadron, 
and the American Armada was afraid to venture 
forth. Any one of those great transport ships 
with its thousand men and stores of food and am- 
munition could have been captured by a mere 
gunboat and possibly by '' the crew of the cap- 
tain's gig." The delay gave the men opportunity 
to purchase some extra supplies of food, especially 
catsups, condiments and sauces with which the 
taste of the simple components of the travel ration 
could be varied. 



100 FUN AND FIGHTING 

On board ship, too, they got a better opportu- 
nity to keep clean. It cannot be said, however, 
that they were more comfortable. The ship was 
overcrowded even after one battalion of the 2d 
Infantry was ordered to another boat. Some pre- 
served meat was brought aboard about this time. 
It was sickening in odour and by order of Colonel 
Wood was pitched into the harbour. It is to be 
hoped that the fish in the neighbourhood did not 
partake of it. Dumped overboard in sufficient 
quantities and at proper points it would reform 
the entire breed of man-eating sharks and add 
abundantly to the peace and comfort of a much 
perturbed world. 

There was practically no amusement for the 
men save swimming around the boat, and this 
swimming, combined with an unusual load of fire- 
water, caused the only general court-martial in the 
regiment's history. Under the influence of liquor 
one of the " Rough Riders " disobeyed a swim- 
ming regulation and was impudent to the ofificer 
of the day, one of the lieutenants of the 2d 
Infantry. The latter drew his revolver, which 
angered the man still more, and he had to be 
handled with force by the guard that accompanied 
the ofificer. 

The next day of course he was penitent. Charges 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA loi 

were preferred against him, however, and he 
was tried by a general court of which the writer 
was made judge advocate. The task of a judge 
advocate is by no means a light one, but the 
writer gladly accepted it (he had to, anyway) for 
the opportunity it gave him to get something to 
write on. He put in a very elaborate requisition 
for stationery, to all of which he was entitled. It 
has not been filled up to the present time. He 
was compelled to borrow paper and writing mat- 
erials from the 2d, with whom, after the jar of the 
first contact, we had become very good friends. 

About the only other amusement was listen- 
ing to the band of the 2d, which gave two pro- 
grammes each day, and singing. There was one 
interminable song with a chorus of '' — de monk, 
de monk, de monk, de monk — " ad lib. which 
always appealed strongly to the risibilities of Cap- 
tain Capron. It was about the only thing that 
aroused Capron's risibilities, for to him, natural 
born soldier that he was, the war was a very seri- 
ous thing. Indeed his nature was a perfect will- 
ingness to fight anybody or anything at the drop 
of the hat with cause or without. In fact he was 
then intent on fighting for a people he did not 
hesitate to criticise. 

His attitude in this matter may have been caused 



102 FUN AND FIGHTING 

by a singular incident which occurred at this time. 
The dynamite gun was first shipped on board a 
transport carrying artillery. This ship was com- 
manded by Capron's father, an artillery officer. 
With the gun were a son of the inventor and a 
Cuban, who did not at the time disclose his rank, 
but who shone forth after landing as a major in 
the Cuban army. This Cuban did not get on well 
with Captain Capron of the artillery, and in con- 
sequence the dynamite gun and its store of explo- 
sive were transferred to our ship. The Cuban had 
no sooner come aboard (now assigned to our regi- 
ment as an interpreter) than he began criticising 
the commanding officer of the ship he had just 
left in unmeasured terms, blissfully unconscious of 
the fact that the son of the man he was reviling 
was on board the Yucatan. He was brought to 
with a round turn by Capron, and scared out of 
his wits. He kept out of Capron's way after that, 
and had nothing more to say of the father. He 
had jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. 
He tried to get even by covert sneers at the men 
of the Rough Riders, but he was waited on by a 
committee of one from the officers of the regiment 
and the inadvisability of his conduct was explained 
to him, with the assurance that if he continued it 
he mieht feel hurt at the action that would be 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA 103 

taken by the officers. Then he concluded to " be 
good." 

Every paper in the land had now announced 
that the objective of the expedition was Santiago. 
It did not seem possible that the War Depart- 
ment would permit such an important fact to be 
advertised, not only to the nation but to the world, 
and for that reason all concurred in the belief 
that our destination was anywhere but Santiago. 
Numerous were the conjectures and great the 
studying of the official maps. By an inadvertence 
on the part of the navy, however, we soon learned 
that Santiago was the actual objective. We had 
borrowed some canvas ventilators for the benefit 
of the men in the hold from the navy, and in mak- 
ing out the receipt to be signed by us they had 
included the words " en route to Santiago." 

Eventually the start was made. Even then we 
did not know that we were actually off, until 
Captain Quay of one of the staff departments 
steamed alongside and told us that such was the 
case. Slowly the Yucatan steamed out through 
the narrow tortuous channel. One of the trans- 
ports ahead had run aground, and we came within 
six feet of running our nose into her. As the 
nose carried all the dynamite for the dynamite 
gun, there was a lively prospect of a disaster com- 



104 FUN AND FIGHTING 

pared to which the blowing up of the Maine would 
have been trivial. Quick work by captain and 
crew stopped the Yucatan within a few feet of the 
stranded ship. 

Then we backed, forged ahead again in a channel 
made still narrower by the position of the other 
boat, passed so close to the latter that we could 
almost have handed a newspaper from one boat 
to the other, and took our place in the column of 
transports. Other transports had preceded, and 
others followed, and the armada was soon steam- 
ing south in the Gulf of Mexico. The Seguranca, 
carrying General Shafter and his staff, stood to 
one side, and the flotilla passed in review. It was 
a great sight. From horizon to horizon the 
column stretched, three ships abreast. The naval 
escort was hull down in front, and the rear guard 
hull down behind. In that order we remained 
until near the end of the journey. Off Key West 
we were joined by a still more powerful escort, in- 
cluding a battle ship. 

Life on board now became a monotony varied 
only by drills, schools, and a search every evening 
for the celebrated tropical constellation known as 
the Southern Cross. Its beauties were dilated 
upon by the few on board who had ever seen it. 
When discovered it was a keen disappointment, 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA 105 

and about as inspiring as the " his mark " put by 
an ignorant farmer to a contract for a gold brick. 

Seasickness passed away the time for many, and 
guard duty became a matter of horror for men 
with squeamish stomachs. One officer had his 
head out of a port hole in the dining salon, when 
a man above was suddenly called upon to com- 
mune with the mighty deep. The officer had 
been looking at a shark. He regretted his incli- 
nation to " rubber-neck " on that shark. Among 
the officers the seasickness was a welcome joke, 
and the meals missed by the unfortunates were 
carefully tabulated. 

Ignorance of nautical terms was a theme of 
constant jest, and the land-lubber who got hold of 
a new one always paraded it as ostentatiously as 
possible, using it correctly about one time in ten. 
The doctors no longer ran a hospital but a " sick 
bay," and the men of the regiment, like all others 
of the cavalry division, began to call themselves 
*' horse marines." The line by which the captain 
of the Yucatan blew the whistle, and which 
stretched from the bridge to the smoke-stack, was 
the cause of much hilarity. The deck back of the 
bridge was the only open-air lounging place re- 
served for officers. The line seemed taut and 
strong, and for some inexplicable psychical reason 



io6 FUN AND FIGHTING 

there was a strong temptation to hang on to 
it with one's hands. Every time this was done, 
of course, the whistle blew and the sheepish un- 
fortunate got a general laugh. The self-played 
trick was no respecter of rank, and the joke was 
on all, high and low. 

About this time it was discovered, to the great 
satisfaction of headquarters, that in some mysteri- 
ous manner most of the troops had become fairly 
well supplied with axes, spades, pickaxes, and so 
forth. It is to be hoped that they descended as 
" the gentle dew from heaven," and that the 2d 
Infantry did not discover any shortage in its 
stores. 

A competent acting sergeant-major was becom- 
ing an absolute necessity, and I began to look 
around for one at drill. I found the man. By 
his qualifications he was competent to be a com- 
missioned officer, and I found had been an ofificer 
on a governor's staff. After the battle of Guasi- 
mas I got Colonel Wood's permission to appoint 
him to the duty, and instituted a hunt for him. I 
found him among the dead. This was Marcus D. 
^ Russell of '' G " troop. 

As we neared the eastern extremity of Cuba the 
City of Washington, which was towing a lighter, 
dropped steadily behind, and the Yucatan was 



EN ROUTE TO CUBA 107 

ordered to stand by and assist, if necessary. The 
captain of the City of Washington, when informed 
of our courteous mission, responded very gruffly 
to the effect that he didn't want any of our help, 
but the Yucatan continued to stand by as per 
orders. This delayed us a number of hours, and we 
passed Guantanamo in the morning, whereas the 
main body of the flotilla had passed unobserved 
during the night. A gunboat put out from the 
harbour, and was surprised to learn from us that 
the rest of the ships had passed. It also gave us 
news of the successful marine attack at that point, 
and we could see the flag of the marines flying at 
the entrance to the harbour. In a few hours we 
had rejoined the flotilla. 



CHAPTER X 

ON CUBAN SOIL 

If the Catskills were a trifle higher and ex- 
tended east and west, from horizon to horizon, 
they would appear to the inhabitants of Catskill 
much as the mountain backbone of Cuba appeared 
to the American army of invasion from the trans- 
ports, as they lay ten or twelve miles off the 
Cuban coast. The two ranges are of similar 
structure and much the same general appearance. 
All the rest of the day we steamed slowly back 
and forth, and at night ran out to sea (south into 
the Caribbean), returning at daybreak. 

Another day we waited, and at night repeated 
the manoeuvres of the night before. On this second 
day a waterspout of very complete formation ran 
through part of the fleet, accompanied by two 
half-formed ones. The sea all the time was ap- 
parently smooth, but the captain of the Yucatan 
told us that there was a heavy " storm swell " due 
to storms further south. On this last day Captain 

Rivers of our brigade staff came aboard and gave 

io8 



ON CUBAN SOIL 109 

us the orders for formation on landing. They 
were as follows : 

1st. The 2d Division (General Lawton's) will 
be landed first. The ships of that division will be 
placed in front of Daiquiri, and as close to shore 
as possible, so as to make as little rowing as 
may be. 

2d. General Bates' Brigade disembarks second, 
and will form immediately in rear of Lawton's 
line. 

3d. General Wheeler's Division will disembark 
third, and his ships will form on the left of those 
carrying the 2d Division (Lawton's). His line 
will also form on the left of Lawton's. 

4th. The 1st Division (Kent's) will disembark 
fourth, and the ships will be placed well to the 
left so as to unload at Demajayobe or Juragua, as 
may be directed later, or at Daiquiri. 

The ships carrying the mounted Squadron, Light 
Artillery and mules will form in rear of those car- 
rying Lawton's and Bates' commands, and await 
orders. 

EXTRA. 

Each company on disembarking will carry 3 
axes, 3 picks and 3 spades: 

It will be seen from the foregoing that Lawton 



no FUN AND FIGHTING 

was to form the right, Kent the left, and Wheeler 
the centre, a formation that was not completed 
until the day after the battles of San Juan and 
El Caney. 

The landing was made on June 22d. It was 
supposed that the movement was to commence 
at daybreak, and the men were roused before the 
first peep of dawn to — wait. This was charac- 
teristic of the entire campaign. It was usual to 
get up before the men were half rested and — wait. 
It was not until afternoon that we were actually 
landed, and but for a piece of luck we should not 
have been landed until the next day. 

To make up for the strain of waiting the navy 
furnished us with a picturesque sight by bombard- 
ing the town of Daiquiri and the adjacent hills and 
shore. It was already in flames, the Spaniards 
having set fire to it and decamped. The bom- 
bardment was beautiful. Big guns, little guns, and 
machine guns were turned loose on the town, in a 
way that would have driven out an army. The 
marksmanship of the navy was fine and the way 
they put shells into a block house on a hill to the 
right of the town was wonderful. In the mean- 
time small boats were being rapidly filled with the 
infantry of the ist Division. 

They were towed in long strings to a small burn- 



ON CUBAN SOIL iii 

ing pier, and unloaded. This was the ticklish 
moment, and we waited on board the transports 
in a fever of excitement. If the Spaniards were 
going to contest the landing, now would be the 
time they would appear. Eyes were strained at 
the pigmies climbing on shore, and every glass 
was brought into requisition. Suddenly some one 
exclaimed : 

" Why, they're forming by companies." 

And sure enough they were. If there had been 
the least sign of an enemy they would have been 
in battle formation, and we knew then that there 
was to be no opposition to the landing. The fierce 
bombardment had only injured the Cuban allies 
who, to the number of several hundred, had been 
taken to the east of the town the night before 
to attack the garrison from the rear. The navy 
killed one of them and wounded another. 

The landing now proceeded very briskly, but 
with little regard to the orders just quoted. The 
navy, with which Roosevelt was very popular, 
proceeded to land us long before our time and 
v/ith us the remainder of the 2d brigade of the 
cavalry division. The ist brigade (General Sum- 
ner's) which should have landed before us did not 
get off until the next day. 

Headquarters and a few of the officers and men 



112 FUN AND FIGHTING 

of " L troop with their captain were taken on 
board the Vixen, where we spent a very pleasant 
half day as the guests of the officers of the boat. 
They lived in a style unknown to land soldiers in 
campaign, and could actually keep clean. They 
gave us considerable information but a good deal 
of it was inaccurate. They said there were twenty 
thousand Spanish soldiers in Santiago with more 
coming. We had heard before sailing that five 
thousand of our regulars could take Santiago 
against any numbers, however, and were not par- 
ticularly impressed. It is an extremely fortunate 
thing that the attempt was not made with five 
thousand troops or even double that number. 
Another victory like San Juan would have sent the 
army back to its ships. 

The Vixen provided the Yucatan with a Cuban 
pilot who steered that vessel well into the harbour 
and so near the pier that it was a matter of but a 
short time to get the men disembarked. The 
landing at the pier was extremely difficult. A 
beach descended from the shore for perhaps fifty 
feet. Then there was an immediate drop to deep 
water. The boats used in landing would pitch 
dangerously near this beach, for the ropes from 
bow and stern had to be of a good length, owing 
to the heavy swell the captain of the Yucatan had 



ON CUBAN SOIL 113 

spoken of. Up the boat would go until a man's 
head would clear the dock, then down it would go 
till the man's head was six feet below the level he 
aspired to. Guns and haversacks, officers' pistols 
and sabres were thrown on the dock, a favourable 
opportunity was waited, and as the boat rose man 
or officer would jump, others would catch him 
from the dock above and pull him up. 

On landing Captain O'Neill saw an immediate 
opportunity to do something, and remained for the 
rest of the afternoon helping men from the boats. 
A number of boats were swamped, and those that 
touched the beach were badly damaged and for 
the time, at least, rendered useless. Two troopers 
of the loth Cavalry were drowned, never coming 
to the surface because of the weight of the cart- 
ridges they carried. Here was another oppor- 
tunity for O'Neill, and he jumped in to the rescue. 
He and another dove time and again without 
avail. They recovered a number of carbines, 
however, and the regiment was ahead in that par- 
ticular implement for slaying one's fellow-man in 
the cause of civilization. 

In the meantime Dr. LaMotte, Sergeant Wright 

the colour-bearer, and Piatt, chief trumpeter, 

had raised the flag of the regiment at the block 

house on the hill at the right. When the flag 
8 



114 FUN AND FIGHTING 

went up every ship in the offing blew its whistle 
loud and long in salute and the men on shore and 
on the transports cheered. This flag, by the way, 
was the flag belonging to the Arizona squadron. 
The reo;imental colours and standard were not re- 
ceived by the regiment until after the campaign. 

Our first sight of our Cuban allies was not reas- 
suring. They had lately been provided with 
magazine guns and ammunition, but they were the 
dirtiest, most slovenly looking lot of men I had 
ever seen. Apache Indians were dudes compared 
to them. They seemed to be equally lazy and 
hungry. One of them, sitting within a foot of a 
hydrant from which I had just filled my canteen, 
asked me for a drink from the canteen. He was 
too lazy to reach up, take the tin cup on top of the 
hydrant, and turn the faucet. The officers were 
at first arrogant. A number of them came with 
the expedition ; and these, who had never before 
been in the war, wore splendid uniforms and were 
the most overbearing of the lot. It almost 
seemed as though they considered the American 
army their personal property. They soon took a 
tumble from their high estate, however. 

The Spaniards had destroyed two locomotives 
at Daiquiri, and a number of buildings by fire. 
The latter were still smouldering. If they had 



ON CUBAN SOIL 115 

taken as much pains to destroy the small wooden 
pier they could have delayed the army a great 
deal. It was but partially burned when the first 
troops landed. The fire was quickly extinguished 
and some slight, very slight, repairs made. They 
had intrenched several positions in the town and 
back of the town proper had an intrenched maga- 
zine, which was quite empty. Immediately in 
front of the magazine was a large frame building 
which was used as a bakehouse. A shell from 
one of the war ships had struck at the base of this 
house, ricocheted and passed through the oven, 
besides doing considerable other damage. Oppo- 
site this building the Rough Riders went into 
camp, and with their usual luck in this direction, 
into about as poor a camp as could be found. It 
was hardly large enough for a troop and all eight 
troops were crowded into it. Immediately in 
front the loth Cavalry had camped, taking consid- 
erably more room. 

The inhabitants of the town had returned to 
their poor homes by this time, and with them the 
woman who presided over the bakehouse. It 
turned out that her husband was in the Spanish 
army. Soldiers of all sorts of conditions were 
crowding into the house to take a look at the 
damage and satisfy their curiosity. Colonel 



li6 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Wood, therefore, had a guard placed over the 
building. The men of all the regiments immedi- 
arely began to show their sympathy for the 
Cubans in a practical manner by making the 
women presents of hard tack. I saw one woman 
with three children tagging after her and at least 
a hundred hard tack stowed away in the bosom 
of her dress — in plain sight — still begging for more 
and getting it too. 

General Lawton's division had pushed on ahead 
on the road to Siboney, and his advance guard was 
at the heels of the fleeing Spaniards, though but 
few shots were exchanged and no one was hurt on 
either side. 

In the rude camp we had picked out there was 
little to do but wait for our stores from the boat. 
We had come ashore with merely what we could 
conveniently carry, for it was no easy trick to even 
get into the boats from the companionway of the 
Yucatan in a sea that rose and fell in such a 
bewildering way to the landsmen. We had time, 
therefore, to take a look at Daiquiri and the 
country surrounding. Back in the foothills of the 
mountains was the iron mine which was the chief 
industrial feature of this and the surrounding 
towns. 

Incidentally, wherever there is a house in Cuba 



ON CUBAN SOIL 117 

there is apparently a town with a grandiose name. 
Just where Daiquiri ceased and Demajayobe began 
is still a mystery, and the same may be said of the 
latter town and Juragua. All three in America 
would be called by some such name as Smithville 
and made a twenty-fifth class post-ofifice, if such 
there be. Singularly enough, the iron mines were 
owned principally, if not entirely, by Americans 
and were worked largely by convicts who were 
now guerrillas in the Spanish army. 

An immense iron pier shot out from the eastern 
end of Daiquiri, although east, west, and centre 
were almost coincident. This pier was too high 
to be of use in unloading the transports, and was 
crowded with ore cars which it was confidently 
asserted were filled with explosives. On all sides 
at varying distances were the peculiar little Spanish 
blockhouses with which the whole island was 
dotted. They were wooden structures, as a rule, 
about the size of an ordinary room. The sides 
were loopholed and a small cupola rose from the 
top. But they were deceitful little affairs. The 
unwily assailant could shoot them full of holes 
without injuring a defender, as they were but the 
covering of a deep pit from which the small garri- 
sons of ten or fifteen men could fire unobserved 
and in perfect safety. ^^ ^,. 



Ii8 FUN AND FIGHTING 

The buildings were useful only to keep out the 
rain and sun, and for observation. They were 
within rifle shot of each other, and could help 
each other in case of attack. This blockhouse 
chain was probably the best system of mountain 
warfare ever devised, but it necessitated oceans 
of men, and did not keep peace in Cuba. These 
blockhouses stretched all along the mountain 
backbone of the island, and could be easily seen 
with a glass, even the men walking around them. 
Indeed, when once located the buildings could be 
seen with the naked eye. No attempt was ever 
made to capture the blockhouses on the moun- 
tains, and every movement of our army must have 
been reported correctly to the authorities in San- 
tiago as soon as it was made. Back in the direc- 
tion of the iron mines some of our men discovered 
a yellow fever pest-house — and permitted it to 
waste its fragrance on the desert air. 

A victim of malaria all my life I promptly came 
down with it the first night in Cuba, and from that 
night was never a well man until I was cured of 
the Cuban fever in the hospitals of my own 
country and had pulled through numberless re- 
lapses of decreasing severity. I knew the symp- 
toms only too well, and asked the doctors for some 
quinine. For some cause they seemed to be loath 



ON CUBAN SOIL 119 

to give me any, and on pressing for their reasons 
discovered that there were but two three-grain 
quinine pills in the regiment. 

It is only fair to say that the medical stores 
were not all off the boat. I left the priceless pills, 
however, and got some from my old regiment, the 
lOth Cavalry. That night I had nothing but my 
yellow slicker for bedding and covering, and my 
teeth played the long roll all night long. By this 
experience I made the surprising discovery that 
the heat of the Cuban days was only equalled by 
the astonishing cold of the nights. In the early 
morning this was explained. All over the lower 
portions of the country apparent fogs, in reality 
clouds, lay in heavy masses. The rain-soaked 
earth gave them off. Gradually as the sun rose 
they disappeared from view, although ill-smelling 
vapours still continued to rise. Eventually, under 
the constant rains the earth became rotten and the 
smell of it almost unendurable. 

A running stream two hundred yards west of 
the camp gave the men an opportunity for a bath 
which they had not enjoyed since the flotilla 
started. That night the sentinels on post were 
particularly alert, for the regiment was now in the 
land of its friends the enemy. 



CHAPTER XI 

ON THE ROAD TO SIBONEY 

On the morning of the 23d of June the regi- 
ment divided its attention between getting sup- 
plies off the Yucatan and making its camp as com- 
fortable as possible. No tents were at hand, but 
rude shelters were made from palm leaves. These 
had the effect of Venetian blinds in a way. They 
kept out the sun, but permitted whatever breeze 
might be stirring to enter. General Young, the 
commander of the ist brigade to which the regi- 
ment belonged, had made his headquarters in a 
small field on the other side of the road. He de- 
clared that the brigade had landed out of its turn, 
but added that he was glad it had. 

Regiments were now being marched to the 
front as fast as they were landed. Small bands 
of Cubans, ragged but apparently light-hearted, 
passed by the camp, also, with the faintest sugges- 
tion of military discipline. Among these were a 
few, a very few, Cuban cavalry troopers mounted 
on hungiy-looking ponies. The Cuban soldiery 

120 



ON THE ROAD TO SIBONEY 121 

has been subjected to a tremendous fire of criti- 
cism, but cool judgment will eventually decide 
that too much was expected of them. They did 
not come up to American expectations ; but, after 
all, they kept three hundred thousand Spaniards 
guessing for three years — no slight achieve- 
ment. 

The tired-out, half-starved, ill-clad Cubans prob- 
ably accepted the arrival of Uncle Sam's troops 
as the beginning of a much-longed-for rest. 
Human nature is human nature nearly every- 
where. They did not understand the American 
way of fighting. Neither did the Spaniards. In 
fact it was not particularly comprehensible to any 
one. Certainly the campaign will not be used in 
military schools as an object lesson in strategy. 
On the contrary, it bore a generic resemblance to 
wholesale murder. 

'' Well," said a regular army officer to me after 
the battle of Guasimas, " we see that the books 
don't give us any idea of what this sort of thing 
is like." 

" This is wicked," said a surgeon to me after the 
battle of San Juan. " I won't go on the field un- 
der fire again." But he did. Temporarily the 
wholesale butchery was too much for his nerves. 

" This is not war, it is slaughter," exclaimed a 



122 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Spanish staff officer in the town of Cancy just be- 
fore he. was killed. 

A little strategy would have saved half the 
casualties in the war, and a little foresight would 
have saved more than half the lives lost by disease 
after the brief campaign. 

The regimental mess had been a matter of great 
bother. Three men, two of them officers and one 
a correspondent of a Chicago paper, had been in 
charge of it and had severally found excuses to 
be relieved. The only headquarters orderly who 
helped the Ethiope prime minister of meals was my 
own, Holderman of " L " troop. Holderman de- 
lighted in work around headquarters, and was most 
willing to remain there on duty. He was orderly 
to me with the understanding that when there was 
an engagement he should be with his troop — and 
this he always was. He was considerable of a char- 
acter in his way. According to his story he was 
a descendant of men w^ho had fought in all the 
wars of the Republic (there is but one t/ie Re- 
public), and his mother and grandmother were both 
Indians. In the Indian territory he was a pros- 
perous farmer. His mixed blood showed in him. 
He worked like a Saxon and fought like an In- 
dian. He was supremely indifferent to rank, and 
spoke his views with charming frankness. 



ON THE ROAD TO SIBONEY 123 

Knowing the difficulty we were in Captain 
McCormick of the 7thCavah'y, attached to '' Ours," 
volunteered to take charge of the mess, and, as 
there was no keen rivalry for the thankless job, he 
was duly confirmed in office. His first stroke was 
a bold and successful one. Somewhere and in 
some mysterious manner he got hold of a mule. 
He never revealed the secret of his exploit. But 
that mule was worth his weight in gold. He car- 
ried the provisions for the regimental mess. No 
pack outfit accompanied him, but one was rigged 
up and he was led by the chocolate prime minis- 
ter. As the quartermaster's department had 
orders to seize all mules, wherever found, we had 
trouble often in clinging to our treasure, but man- 
aged to do so. 

There is nothing a cowboy looks at more wist- 
fully than horses, and a little provident hustling 
came near to mounting some of our " Weary 
Walkers." That is to say, about forty horses 
were captured by our industrious men before they 
had been in camp two hours. The entire camp 
rejoiced. They were not thoroughbreds— but 
horses are horses, and the fact can be proved by 
several systems of logic. They were promptly 
coralled and put under a heavy guard, while the 
regiment rejoiced and the land seemed, at first 



124 FUN AND FIGHTING 

blush, to flow with milk and honey. Alas, the 
horses proved to belong to the Cuban cavalry 
aforementioned, and we were obliged to give them 
up after diplomatic relations with headquarters 
and with the Cuban contingent (as English corre- 
spondents would say) had been strained almost to 
the breaking point. 

In another matter too the regiment was disap- 
pointed. Our Cuban interpreter had promised us 
that the Cubans had been raising large supplies of 
sweet potatoes and other vegetables against our 
coming. They never appeared. Later I begged 
twice for Irish potatoes at the commissary, and in 
lieu of not getting enough to go around was pre- 
sented on each occasion with twelve pounds of 
the priceless spuds in a half-rotten condition. I 
shamefully accepted the bribe. I had to or take 
none. But as to sweet potatoes we envied Marion 
and his men. Had the British officer of history 
visited our camp, and had we possessed sweet 
potatoes, he would have been fed on canned roast 
beef and the sweet potatoes put under a double 
guard though it broke the Anglo-American alliance 
which we hear so much about — in the papers. 

But two horses were landed from the boats for 
our headquarters. One of these belonged to Col- 
onel Wood and the other to Colonel Roosevelt. 



ON THE ROAD TO SIBONEY 125 

The method of landing these horses was one sug- 
gestive of Spartan simpHcity and an utter dis- 
regard of consequences. They were pitched over- 
board from the ships bodily, and allowed to sink 
or swim, live or die, survive or perish, according 
to the effort they severally put forth to get 
ashore. 

The men on landing found that they were more 
seasick on land than they had been in the boats. 
For two days the land seemingly rose and fell in 
billows, though there were no ardent spirits in 
camp. The horses suffered in the same way. It 
was strange to see them rock from side to side in 
their misery — as strange as it was to see the men 
raise their feet high in air v/hen v/alking to meet 
the next land billow. The rolling gait of the 
sailor was explained. 

Camp had no sooner been made comfortable 
and rations issued when an order came unexpect- 
edly to march to the front. It was already after- 
noon, and we were to make Siboney over a wind- 
ing mountain road by night. In twenty minutes 
we were on the road with Brigade headquarters 
and Colonel Wood all mounted at the front. The 
rest of us walked, save Colonel Roosevelt, who with 
the hospital corps marched at the rear to prevent 
straggling and look after any who might become 



126 FUN AND FIGHTING 

lame, halt or blind. The machine gun detach- 
ment remained awaiting mules to convey their 
guns and ammunition. The road wound up the 
foot-hills and through a tropical forest, across tiny 
creeks which we had been gravely assured by the 
Cubans were rivers, past a few deserted sugar 
estates, where nothing but a profusion of magnifi- 
cent flowers suggested the recent occupancy of 
man and his more flower-loving mate, woman, and 
through cocoanut groves, which, near as they were 
to the Spanish lines, had been supplying the 
Cubans with the necessaries of life for three years. 
The improvidence of the natives of the tropics 
could be seen in these. They would secure the 
cocoanuts (which were green at this time of the 
year) and slash them open with their machetes, 
destroying them ruthlessly for the mere sip of 
sweetened water which they contained. 

The sides of the road were literally alive with 
small squads of stragglers from the infantry regi- 
ments that had preceded us. Loaded down with 
more weight than they could carry, unused to such 
terrific heat, and probably in poor physical health 
from too much life in barracks, they had fallen by 
the wayside — many of them not two miles out of 
Daiquiri. We, too, had some stragglers, but by 
no means as many. All of them, of course, re- 



ON THE ROAD TO SIBONEY 127 

joined at Siboney that night. The throwing away 
of useless impedimenta had not then begun. 

We were now scooting around the polar diam- 
eter of the earth at a greater circular velocity than 
we ever had before. The sun sank from sight 
with amazing quickness, and with the same start- 
ling rapidity we passed into and out of the cre- 
puscular zone. What do the love-lorn of the 
tropics do for twilight walks ? In Cuba they do 
not have that happy hour " when from the boughs 
the nightingale's soft note Is heard," nor yet '' the 
hour when lovers' vows seem sweet in every 
whispered word." Really, the tropics should be 
more temperate. 

It was dusk when the head of the regiment en- 
tered Siboney, and dark before the camp fires were 
burning. We entered by crossing a low platform 
bridge almost under the railroad bridge, both of 
which spanned a mighty torrent thirty feet wide, 
and in some places three feet deep. The men had 
their supper at once, as they carried their rations 
with them, but it was long ere the Ethlop and 
mule attached to headquarters made their appear- 
ance. They had straggled. 

We were now with the advance guard of Law- 
ton's division. It consisted of a regiment of in- 
fantry. One battalion occupied the heights back 



128 FUN AND FIGHTING 

of Siboney, another was camped down the railroad 
track which skirted the coast down to the cele- 
brated Morro in which Hobson was supposed to 
be incarcerated, and a third occupied the town. 
Generals Wheeler and Young made their head- 
quarters in the best looking house in town, but 
the men of the regiment were not permitted to 
sleep in the many vacant buildings for fear of con- 
tagious diseases and vermin. It was in this town 
that the first shots were exchanged in the war. 
The Spaniards were scurrying out of one end as the 
American advance guard entered at the other. 
No one was hurt on either side, and the Spaniards 
immediately disappeared from view. 

At supper that night we had guests for the first 
time. Among others was Marshall the Journal 
correspondent who went with us next day almost 
to his death. By pure accident we got to talking 
shop —L €., writing — and I discovered that he was 
for years the editor of a department of the New 
York World to which I had been a regular con- 
tributor. He was then contemplating a duty in 
his profession abroad, and feared he would not be 
with us long. He was not. The next day a piece 
of Spanish steel changed the whole current of his 
life, and the fortitude with which he bore up under 
such a disheartening adversity was as admirable 



ON THE ROAD TO SIBONEY 129 

as his supreme nerve in writing despatches to his 
paper under the hottest fire of the battle. 

Generals Wheeler and Young had planned dur- 
ing the evening to push ahead in the morning. 
At the time the only information I had of the 
project was that we were to become the advance 
guard on the following day. From a classmate, 
Lieutenant Herman Hall, Adjutant of the advance 
guard of Lawton's division, I learned that the 
Spaniards were in force on ^' the second ridge " 
back from the coast in a position from which the 
Cubans had never been able to drive them during 
the three years of the war, and a position they 
had never been able to pass even in small num- 
bers. Orders were given to each of the company 
commanders that they were to be ready to move 
at 5.30 the next morning. 

All night long troops were arriving at Siboney, 
fires were being lighted and supper cooked — sup- 
per or breakfast, according to the time of day. A 
number of us attempted to sleep on the porch of 
one of the frame buildings on the water front. 
There was a fire immediately in front of us, and 
all night the naval vessels threw their searchlights 
full on us. Sleep, therefore, was out of the ques- 
tion — real sleep. Perhaps we caught a cat nap or 
two between the various disturbances of arrival. 
9 



130 FUN AND FIGHTING 

We could have slept on the ground in a place less 
exposed to the noise and the lights from the ves- 
sels, but rain was falling, there was little bedding, 
and it was thought wiser to stay where we were. 
At this place we had another example of the 
amazing selfishness that can animate different 
bodies of men acting in the same manner for the 
same cause. The wells in the town had been 
placed under guard of the regiment preceding us 
into it, and our men were compelled to go back 
to the river for almost all the water they used. 



CHAPTER XII 

GUASIMAS 

The real intention of Generals Wheeler and 
Young proved to be a battle with the Spaniards 
in their strong position at the juncture of the two 
roads from Siboney to Santiago. Orders were 
issued that day for them to return to Daiquiri, in 
order that the cavalry division should be thrown 
back to the rear, the ist Brigade having just dis- 
embarked. General Wheeler was the ranking 
general on shore, however. General Shafter being 
still on board the Seguranca, and the orders were 
forwarded too late. Lo, the stone which the 
builders seemed inclined to reject had become the 
head of the column ! 

Accounts agree on almost everything that hap- 
pened in the campaign up to the morning of the 
24th of June, 1898, the day of the battle of Guasi- 
mas — battle, skirmish, surprise, ambush, glorious 
victory, waste of energy, whichever the reader 
chooses to call it from his point of view. From 

this time on to the truce, ten days later, no two 

131 



132 FUN AND FIGHTING 

persons seem to agree. Heroism, Ability, Incom- 
petence, Ambition, Jealousy and their train of 
attendants suddenly strode from the wings to the 
stage, and struggled for the centre and the rays of 
the limelight. And no sooner did the curtain fall 
en the scene than the characters grabbed pen and 
ink and began writing of it. 

The result is a mass of historical data fairly ap- 
palling in its contradictory evidence. The effect 
of all this upon the present scribe is such that he 
can look upon all history with a dubious smile 
and exclaim at each volume, " I wonder why you 
WTote this," and " Why you wrote that." Men 
who saw little or nothing of the events of the 
next ten days have written most surprising things, 
and men who were near enough to see have writ- 
ten absolutely amazing things about them. The 
campaign was a short one, but the history that 
records it will be a long one. France fell down 
and worshipped Napoleon for grabbing a flag and 
rushing across a bridge at the head of his troops 
in the very face of a battery of artillery. To-day 
France knows and we know that Napoleon was 
smart enough to know that the artillery was abso- 
lutely out of ammunition before he undertook 
what seemed like a piece of foolhardiness. Time 
is a gossip who tells a number of interesting 



GUASIMAS 133 

things, and perhaps Time will be able to figure out 
the real from the unreal and Ideal in this campaign. 

Though the regiment was to move at 5:30 in 
the morning of the 24th of June, It did not get 
started until about 6 A. M. Nor was Its progress 
at first very rapid. It started straight back from 
the coast up the steep, long hill which led to the 
tableland, dotted here and there with small peaks, 
which continues in a more or less even sweep, 
now gently sloping, now as gently rising to the 
harbour of Santiago. On the north this mesa is 
bounded by the mountains which run parallel 
with the coast. North of the mountains there Is 
a higher and more extensive tableland. On the 
west the tableland first mentioned is broken up 
Into the hills and hog backs we had crossed in our 
march from Daiquiri to Siboney. 

The hill was hard to climb, and the regiment 
was halted to rest several times. Before the top 
was gained we had passed the usual Spanish block- 
house and the battalion thrown out by Lawton's 
advance guard. After that the Rough Riders 
were the advance of the army. At the top of the 
hill the various trails merged into an unused road 
between two estates. A barbed-wire fence ran 
on either side, composed of about twice as many 
strands as those in America, and in addition there 



134 FUN AND FIGHTING 

was a dense tropical foliage along the line of the 
fence. This foliage was in the nature of an im- 
mense hedge. Further to the right and left the 
country was more open, though the grass and; 
brush were still high and annoying to the traveller. ' 

It was a beautiful day, and as it was yet early i 
morning the heat was not stifling. The regi- 
ment swung on over the road as thoughtlessly as 
though it was going to a picnic. Ahead rode the 
mounted officers, including two aides from brigade 
headquarters, a newspaper correspondent and Cap- 
tain McCormick, who had corralled another mule 
in as mysterious a manner as he had obtained our 
headquarters pack mule. Our Cuban interpreter, 
also mounted on a mule and clad in a gorgeous uni- 
form (he was now a Cuban major), carried a well- 
filled meal sack on the pommel of his saddle and 
also rode with headquarters. Marshall alternately 
walked with me and took turns with Captain Mc- 
Cormick, riding the latter's mule. 

The regiment halted several times for a short rest. 
During one of these the other correspondent was 
slow in mounting his mule, and the regiment came 
tramping at his heels. Again and again he tried 
to mount but failed. I could not repress a smile, 
and that smile cost me his enmity throughout the 
campaign. The little satisfaction he got from his 



GUASIMAS 135 

subsequent attempts to injure me while he was eat- 
ing of the bread I helped to pay for he is welcome to. 

We had advanced about a mile and a half when 
the regiment was halted, and '' L " troop com- 
manded by Captain Capron was sent in advance as 
an advance guard. No one in the regiment under- 
stood advance guard duty better than he, but for 
some reason he used a '' point " of only four men, 
no flankers and no support. The main body of his 
advance guard came on too closely upon the heels 
of the point. Capron himself, utterly fearless, 
marched about midway (at least during the latter 
part of the advance) between his point and his 
troop. He probably wanted to have both under 
his immediate eye. Fortune favoured him and the 
sharp eyes of Isabel, one of his four men in the 
"point," discovered the Spanish position. 

Throughout the march wood doves seemed to be 
continually calling, one on each side of the road, and 
they apparently receded as the regiment advanced. 
There is every reason to suppose that they were 
signals of Spanish pickets. On the next day I 
found a number of small fresh camping places where 
the remnants of fresh cigarette boxes, unused car- 
tridges and the ashes from recent camp fires showed 
that the Spanish pickets had been there and prob- 
ably departed in a hurry. 



136 FUN AND FIGHTING 

In the meantime the other two regiments of the 
brigade had been marching up the main road which 
skirts the end of the hill we climbed, and which 
reaches the mesa by a slighter but longer grade. 
Why a division of the command was made in de- 
fiance of all the rules of war the present writer will 
not attempt to explain. Marching with a superior 
army to effect the capture of a much smaller one 
this is sometimes permissible. The brigade, how- 
ever, was marching against a superior force. As 
the same division of command was made at the 
battles of the ist of July, the hopeful may assume 
that a new and startling description of strategy has 
been developed by Americans. At any rate it 
worked, and criticism is half silenced. 

The Spanish position at Guasimas was something 
in the nature of V or L with the angle between the 
perpendicular and horizontal of the latter some- 
what reduced, and with the end of each broken ofT 
and pointed up the road on which the Rough 
Riders were advancing. 




GUASIMAS 137 

The direction of the line C D is south, with a 
slight bearing to the east. The Rough Riders 
were therefore advancing north, with a bearing 
to the west. At D was the strong Spanish out- 
post which Capron attacked, and it is there that 
the cactus and trees were shot to pieces by the tre- 
mendous fusillade. A few hundred yards from D, 
in the direction of Siboney, the road made a slight 
bend so the main body of the regiment could not 
see its advance guard. It was on this bend that 
the regiment halted when word was sent back by 
Capron that the Spanish position had been dis- 
covered. 

The other half of the brigade was advancing 
on a road on the further side of A B, which was a 
long hill that terminated abruptly at B and from 
there sloped gradually to A. At C our road from 
Siboney made an abrupt turn after a sharp descent 
from D and a slight rise at C. From C to A the 
Spanish position was nearly level and much lower 
than A B. At A the two roads joined and became 
the main road to Santiago, still bearing in the 
general direction B A to El Poso, where one branch 
turned perpendicularly to the north and passed 
between Kettle hill and the main hills to San- 
tiago and the other branched to the southwest 
towards the Morro. Still another little-used road, 



138 FUN AND FIGHTING 

a branch of the road on which the regulars were 
advancing, ran up through the open country in the 
angle CAB. 

For some reason or other (probably because the 
road on which the regulars advanced was such a 
dangerous one and so banked with dense tropical 
forest on either side) the Spaniards, it is said, ex- 
pected the advance to be made along this latter 
road. It will be seen that they were well prepared 
to annihilate a body coming up that road or trail, 
at the same time guarding both the other roads. 
When they discovered the troops were approach- 
ing by both roads they came (as we now know) to 
the reasonable conclusion that the whole American 
army was upon them, and retreated. This retreat 
began slowly and methodically, after the first half 
hour of fighting, though it was not apparent until 
the end of the fight and not hurried until the two 
wings had joined at A and filed ofif on the road to 
Santiago, carrying their wounded and probably 
most of their dead. 

There has been some discussion as to whether 
the Rough Riders were ambushed at Guasimas. 
Technically and actually such was not the case. 
They were not surprised, as they saw the Spaniards 
before the firing began. Moreover the regiment 
fired first, though some books on the subject de« 



GUASIMAS 139 

clare that the Spaniards fired first. As a matter 
of fact Captain Capron ordered two shots fired to 
draw the enemy's fire. They were followed in- 
stantly by a perfect tornado of bullets from the 
Spanish which would have wiped the Rough Riders 
off the face of the earth had they not been pro- 
tected by the bend in the road and a dense under- 
growth of young forest. As it was, the bullets 
spatted among the trees and just over the heads of 
the regiment as it stood in a packed column of fours. 
Just before the firing began, and while we v/ere 
waiting, a couple of Cubans carried back a Cuban 
scout who had been wounded some time before. 
He was shot through the neck, tried to talk to 
Colonel Wood, but eventually fell back in a faint 
and was carried to the rear, our Cuban interpreter 
accompanying him. This was the last ever seen 
by the regiment of the interpreter, though he was 
occasionally heard of. 

On the right of the regiment, where it had halted, 
was a small cleared space bounded on the east by 
several small hills. Into this the troops were im- 
mediately thrown and ordered to advance to the 
support of Capron, and in extension of his line 
on the right. '' K " troop formed the extreme 
right and later in the battle joined the left of the 
other half of the brigade which had deployed to 



I40 FUN AND FIGHTING 

the left and front, and part of which at that time 
had crossed over to the gently rising valley in 
which the Spaniards had originally expected the 
advance. As the Spaniards were in retreat by 
that time, they did not become exposed to the two 
flanking fires that had been arranged for them. 

The remaining five troops of the regiment were 
deployed to the left of the road, and sent forward 
in extension of Capron's line on the left. Before 
this that gallant ofificer had been mortally wounded. 
His troops marched a trifle forward in column of 
files, changed direction to the right, and pressed 
forward through the jungle, driving the Spaniards 
out of their cactus defences. They afterwards 
crossed back to the left of the road. 

Here Lieutenant Thomas who succeeded Capron 
in command of the troop was wounded and 
carried back, passing by Colonel Wood and my- 
self. The left and centre of the regiment were 
now on the left of the road and gradually de- 
scending a long slope wooded here and there but 
largely open. The firing here was terrific, and all 
along the line the great majority of casualties 
occurred in the first part of the fight. 

The Spaniards seemed to be little inclined to- 
ward taking the initiative, firing only when we 
did and ceasing to fire when we ceased. They 



GUASIMAS 141 

thought we were advancing when we were firing 
and either remaining stationary or retreating when 
not. They were not undeceived until the final 
advance, v/hich was made in the open with- 
out firing a shot. This audacious movement 
thoroughly convinced the Spaniards (who had 
been till now quietly retreating) that the whole 
American army was within striking distance, 
and they made for home and mother with 
more haste. They were not pursued, the brigade 
camping on the ground the enemy had occupied. 
In the beginning of the deployment on the left 
I had suggested putting our Colt guns on a small 
hill to the left, and Colonel Wood ordered it done. 
Unfortunately one of the packers decamped tak- 
ing with him an important part of the mechanism 
of each gun, and they were not brought into 
action at all. An hour after giving the order I 
went to the officer commanding the gun squad 
to tell him to bring the pieces further to the front 
where we could now see the Spaniards slowly 
moving by the right flank in line of skirmishers 
and learned this disappointing fact. The mule 
was afterwards found and the pieces secured. 
Our prime minister of meals had also skinned out 
and for good. He took with him the mule, mess 
and some bedding. We eventually got the mule. 



142 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Shortly after Lieutenant Thomas was wounded 
Captain McClintock was shot through the leg. 
The firing was so severe that it was impossible to 
take him back to the temporary hospital for some 
time. At about this time a well directed fire 
from the Spanish on our extreme left would have 
resulted very seriously. We were all anxious 
about the left which was stuck out in the air for a 
long time without support, though towards the 
latter half of the battle Captain Muller with '' E '* 
troop was thrown back of it in reserve. This 
troop fired but four shots in the engagement, 
though it had a man wounded. Captain Muller 
did not believe in firing unless he could see some- 
thing to fire at. 

There were two troops in column therefore on 
the left, and at the time mentioned six officers 
were standing up in a moderately small bunch 
near them. These were Colonel Wood, Colonel 
Roosevelt who had left his squadron on the right 
and come to the extreme left where he remained 
for the rest of the fight, Major Brodie who com- 
manded the left squadron, Captain Rivers of the 
brigade staff, Lieutenant Franz, adjutant of Major 
Brodie's squadron and myself. Franz looked 
at me and we grinned at each other. We 
were both in the same boat, both adjutants, and 



GUASIMAS 143 

with little or nothing to do but Jook on and try 
to appear unconcerned. The group broke up at 
the next advance. 

Later Major Brodie was wounded, and, as the 
wound proved to be an extremely painful one, 
when Colonel Wood learned of it he sent me back 
to the hospital for a first aid package. After I 
had started and had crossed a small open space 
there was a crash of fire from our right (we were 
under a flanking fire during the greater part of the 
battle). I turned to look and saw, as I supposed, 
the falling body of Colonel Wood. This led me 
to report the fact that he was wounded. I has- 
tened to get Dr. Church onto the field not only 
for Major Brodie but for Colonel Wood. When 
Church got to the place, however, he did not find 
Colonel Wood. It was Marshall the Jourrial cor- 
respondent who had fallen. He wore a shirt like 
Colonel Wood's, hence the mistake. I had been 
expecting to see Colonel Wood fall and had made 
up my mind to keep it quiet if he did. I tried, 
however, without success to communicate the fact 
to General Young. 

The Spaniards would have suffered much more 
severely if, when we saw them to the best advan- 
tage, we had not feared they were Cubans and 
failed to fire on them. Again, the lane through 



144 FUN AND FIGHTING 

the trees through which we could see them mov- 
ing to their own right was narrow, and but a ver}^ 
few men could fire into it at once. That the 
Spaniards had a flanking force on our right is proved 
by the fact that the next day a number of our offi- 
cers found large quantities of exploded Spanish 
cartridge shells behind a small ridge on the right ; 
by the peculiarity of many of the wounds ; and by 
the direction of the furrows made in the earth by 
many of the bullets when they fell. With the line 
of the latter parallel to our own front it is safe to 
assume that the force that fired it was on our right 
flank. That they had a machine gun is also cer- 
tain. The next day I found a box recently 
opened on the battlefield near Capron's position 
which had contained machine gun ammunition, 
together with another box which had contained 
rifle ammunition. The nature of the contents of 
each was branded on their sides. It is equally 
certain that they had posted guerrillas in the trees 
under which the regiment had deployed who fired 
on us from the rear. In fact one officer came back 
from his troop to protest that some other troop 
of *' Ours " was firing on his from the rear. It 
was explained to him that there was no troop 
which could fire on him from the rear as all were 
at that time on the line. There was not so much 



GUASIMAS 145 

trouble from guerrillas in this battle as there was 
in the fight at San Juan, however. 

When the first shots were fired I looked at my 
watch and noted the time. We began shooting 
at precisely 7:20 A. M. It was twenty minutes be- 
fore the other half of the brigade got in, and for 
twenty minutes the Rough Riders stood the fire 
of the whole Spanish force alone, their troops on 
the ridge in the distance being able to fire at us 
over the heads of the Spaniards with whom we 
were directly engaged. Their total force is vari- 
ously estimated at from 2,500 to 4,000. The Rough 
Riders had about 550 men actually engaged in the 
battle, besides commissioned officers. The regi- 
ment camped on the battle ground along the line 
AC. 

As the enemy left the field Colonel Wood as 
ranking regimental commander took command of 
the entire brigade and stationed the regiments in 
position to hold the ground won. There was little 
real need of this. The Spaniards retired promptly 
to Santiago where they had all along planned to 
make their real defence. In fact the brigade could 
have pushed on that night to San Juan. The 
Spanish commander at Guasimas had been in- 
structed to run no risk and lose as few men as pos- 
sible. He obeyed his orders. There were few if 
10 



146 FUN AND FIGHTING 

any dead bodies of Spaniards found on the battle- 
field. They reported but nine killed, and the 
usual proportion to that wounded. There were 
but three or four bodies of Spaniards buried by 
our regiment, and one of these was a Spaniard 
who had been killed by Cubans the day before. 

There was plenty of joking among the Rough 
Riders during the engagement. That seems to be 
the psychical poise of the Westerner. There was 
no groaning among the wounded. Often there 
was an exclamation of surprise, and the man 
would hunt around curiously to see where he had 
been hit. Then he would grinningly inform his 
comrades. Their attitude was very similar to that 
of the Irish hod carrier who fell four stories from 
the window of a house in process of construction 
and on striking the pavement looked up and re- 
marked, " I broke me poipe." They all desired to 
be put together in little squads with their guns 
and ammunition for protection. After every ex- 
change of fire the regiment moved forward, how- 
ever, thus surprising the Spaniards by gaining 
ground and effectually covering the wounded. 
Orders were given that the men on the line should 
not help the wounded back to the hospital, and 
these orders were strictly obeyed. It seemed a 
heartless measure but it was necessary. The 



GUASIMAS 147 

wounded did not complain. Indeed they were 
promptly cared for by Surgeons LaMotte and 
Church and their assistants. 

When Colonel Wood first observed the flank 
movement of the Spaniards, he shouted, '' They're 
on the run." A man in one of the troops nearby 
exclaimed : 

*' Things seem to be coming our way." 

*' Yes — bullets," answered another. 



CHAPTER XIII 

IN CAMP ON A BATTLEFIELD 

After the battle and the establishment of 
camp the men began to hunt around for articles 
shed during the fight. Details were sent out to 
huut for the dead and to beat through the brush for 
any wounded who might have fallen unnoticed. 
By nightfall the little shelter tents had been 
erected, a waggon cover marquee swung for Col- 
onels Wood and Roosevelt and a number of news- 
paper correspondents who were guests at head- 
quarters, and the camp began to look quite '' ship- 
shape," as one of the jocular " horse-marines " 
said. Marine terms were in constant use now. 
Many of the men referred no longer to the *' front " 
and " rear " but used the equivalents " forward " 
and " aft." Some even went so far as to use 
" starboard " and " port " in preference to the 
ordinary expressions. 

One sailor's term stayed with the regiment per- 
sistently. This was the sailors' call '* gangway " 

which they use when they want people to get out 
148 



IN CAMP ON A BATTLEFIELD 149 

of their way. Indeed one officer nearly precipi- 
tated the battle before the shots were fired by 
Capron's " point." He rode up from the rear in 
a great hurry through the crowded ranks in the 
narrow road shouting '^ gangway " at the top of 
his voice. The regiment was at the halt and ab- 
solute silence was commanded. Every one tried 
to make him keep still by dumb play but without 
avail until he reached Colonel Wood himself. 
The latter whispered the situation, and the officer 
looked very sheepish. 

The " sick bay " however had again become the 
hospital." This was a distinct advance. The 
hospital consisted of a tree, some grass covered 
ground and a tent in which the medicines were 
stored. It might just as fittingly have been called 
the " croquet ground." Later the remaining tents 
and appurtenances were brought on, and the 
hospital became quite an institution. In fact the 
surgeons declared that it was better supplied than 
any other regimental hospital in the campaign. 

Brigade headquarters immediately demanded 
our casualty returns, and my own time was de- 
voted to making them out. When I handed them 
to Colonel Wood for his signature I had verified 
them by comparison with the returns of the hos- 
pital. We agreed with but one exception. They 



I50 FUN AND FIGHTING 

carried one more man killed than my reports did. 
It was discovered that this man was wounded but 
alive and likely to recover — which he eventually 
did. — This gave them one more man wounded 
than my list showed. This I explained to the 
Colonel. He was greatly surprised at the report, 
as from oral information he had received from 
various quarters he supposed our loss greatly in 
excess of what the reports showed. Consequently 
he called all the first sergeants to headquarters 
and went over the list again. Every sergeant 
convinced him that the report he had submitted 
to me was correct. There still remained the 
mystery of the one man wounded unaccounted 
for, however. After a great deal of fencing the 
error was discovered, ist Sergeant Greenley of 
"A " troop at length blushingly admitted that he 
was the other man wounded. He had only been 
shot through the ear, he explained and did not 
think it of enough moment to put down on the 
returns. 

This man Greenley was about as fine an example 
of the " all wool and a yard wide " American sol- 
dier as could have been found in the whole 5th 
Corps. He was an old soldier and most thoroughly 
in earnest in everything. His reports were always 
correct, his details the first ready and his troop 



IN CAMP ON A BATTLEFIELD 151 

in absolute discipline. He was the delight of 
Captain O'Neill as the troop was his pride. On 
one occasion Greenley's company clerk had made 
a slight mistake in a clothing roll which had to be 
sent back for correction. The clerk got a lecture 
from Greenley which he will never forget. 

" You have ruined my reputation," wailed 
Greenley, in tones that could be heard all over 
camp, greatly to the delight and amusement of 
O'Neill, the "Charles O'Malley" of the regiment. 
Incidentally the " Mickey Free " of the regiment 
was represented in a quite original and up-to-date 
way by McGinty of " K " troop, who was the de- 
light of Lieutenant (later Captain) Woodbury 
Kane. 

The men found that the haversacks which they 
had shed during the battle had been rifled of most 
of their contents, and there was an immediate 
shortage of rations. Infantry and cavalry were 
now hurrying through camp to the front. How 
they came to be without rations is something in- 
explicable. A pack train came with them, bring- 
ing rations for the Rough Riders, but before it 
could be unloaded it was ordered on for the use 
of some other regiment. The men were very 
hungry and naturally amazed at such a pro- 
cedure. 



152 FUN AND FIGHTING 

In this dilemma Colonel Roosevelt took a de- 
tail of men back to Siboney, secured some of the 
main components of the ration (I think by pur- 
chase with his own money) and brought them 
on. Headquarters, being without food, ate with 
whatever officers would invite it, until the re- 
arrlval the next day of its mule and mess, minus 
the prime minister, who had become valet extra- 
ordinary and chef plenipotentiary to a troop of 
the 9th Cavalry. He took with him my solitary 
piece of bedding, a yellow slicker and a hunting 
knife which was the apple of my eye. I wondered 
how a sleep on the damp ground with the stars 
for a quilt would go with my malaria, when a 
small train hove in sight with my bedding. It 
had been landed at Siboney and brought forward. 
Chaplain Brown had been left behind at Daiquiri 
to help land the regimental stores. When the 
Yucatan changed her position to Siboney the 
chaplain emulated Captain McCormick, obtained 
a mule, packed what he could of the headquarters 
supplies on the mule and pushed on alone to the 
front, arriving just after supper. He was a Godly 
man but a goodly hustler, and walked the whole 
distance apparently without fatigue. He was dis- 
appointed at having missed the battle, but pleased 
to be in time at the funeral. He officiated at 



IN CAMP ON A BATTLEFIELD 153 

every burial in the regiment. It would have 
broken his heart to have missed one. He left at 
Daiquiri a good part of the regimental effects in 
charge of a solitary man. 

This man deserves mention. He had in some 
way reached Cuba intent on joining the Rough 
Riders. He passed the physical examination all 
right but could not be mustered in, as the regi- 
ment was then hurrying its preparations for the 
march to Siboney. He was left alone at Daiquiri 
in charge of all this regimental property, and 
stayed at his post a faithful civilian guard, until I 
took him and the property to the front on July 
7th. He was then promptly mustered in. 

The dead had now been gathered in and laid in 
a rov/ under a tree with a sentinel to guard them 
and keep away the vultures and hideous speckled 
red land crabs, which, with tarantulas, make up 
for the absence of snakes in Cuba. The body of 
Captain Capron was sent back to Siboney with 
the wounded, as his father was on one of the 
transports with his battery of artillery. Thither, 
too, went Chaplain Brown to conduct the services. 
The father could not be communicated with, as 
the transports were too far out at sea, and the 
body had to be buried near the coast. Among 
the ghastly looking row of dead was the body of 



154 FUN AND FIGHTING 

Hamilton Fish, who had been killed in the very 
centre of ** L" troop by the side of ist Sergeant 
Frank P. Hayes (afterwards 2d lieutenant), who 
commanded the centre platoon of that troop. 
When Fish was shot he uttered a sigh, his head 
bowed slightly forward, as though in answer to 
the question Hayes asked him : " Are you hit ? ** 
and expired without saying a word. There was 
also the body of Russel, whom I had hoped to 
make acting sergeant-major. 

Late on the night of the 24th another pack 
train brought rations to the regiment, and the men 
had a pleasant surprise on the next day in the 
shape of an unexpected breakfast. From that 
time on to the capitulation the regiment lived 
literally from hand to mouth. 

All the afternoon a relief of men worked at a 
grave for the dead, and gathered palm leaves with 
which to line the grave, floor it and cover the 
bodies. A new Spanish uniform was found by one 
of the men, and as it had been difficult to tell just 
who were the Spaniards, I had the suit disinfected 
and sent around for inspection. It was of light 
white cloth striped with small blue lines. For the 
rest, they wore high-crowned, broad-brimmed 
straw hats and white shoes. The officers were 
designated by insignia even simpler than our own, 



IN CAMP ON A BATTLEFIELD 155 

when they wore any at all, and each man wore on 
his collar the number of his regiment and the 
Spanish territorial division to which it belonged. 
For instance, " P 29 " meant the ** 29th Peninsula 
Regiment." 

A number of small bands of Cubans passed to 
the front on the road by which we were camped. 
In one of these was an extremely mirthful gentle- 
man, as black as the ace of spades. I saw him a 
number of times afterwards, and his tongue was 
ever hung in the middle and wagging at both 
ends. He took a roseate view of every situation, 
and offered an incentive to our men to move for- 
ward and capture Santiago forthwith. 

" Plenty beautiful senoras in Santiago — most 
beautiful senoras," he cried repeatedly, as he 
passed on. He was a gallant of the old school, 
amorous and enthusiastic. His conception of the 
soldier could be put in the two lines : 

" The first to scale the castle tower, 
As venturous in a lady's bower." 

Here's hoping that he found the " most beauti- 
ful senoras." To the Rough Riders they were 
back in America. In fact Isabel of Capron's 
point, who, with five wounds In his body, helped 
a wounded chum back to Siboney, was already 



156 FUN AND FIGHTING 

making his way back to the Indian Territory to 
kill a rival who had been trying to flirt with his 
sweetheart. 

An ojfficer of the other wing of the brigade came 
over to headquarters and told us of their part of 
the fight. They went headlong up the road with- 
out an advance guard until an excited but wise 
Cuban galloped to the head of the column and 
warned them that unless they threw out an advance 
guard and took proper precautions they would be 
massacred. There was altogether too much con- 
fidence in the American army — too much " ego in 
its cosmos," as Kipling would say. 

Chaplain Brown brought with him a little mail 
for the regiment. A post-ofifice had already been 
established at Daiquiri. But little had been sorted, 
but he brought all that was picked out for us up to 
the time of his departure. I received one letter. 
It was from a newspaper man in New York who 
had just started a weekly paper. He wanted me 
to get subscribers to the paper among the rich men 
of the regiment. In the midst of death we are in 
American enterprise. O'Neill w^as the personifica- 
tion of it. He was the most indefatigable schemer 
that ever was. He already had a number of min- 
ing companies projected to develop the wealth of 
Cuba, to say nothing of sugar companies and huge 



IN CAMP ON A BATTLEFIELD 157 

cattle ranches which were sure to prove money win- 
ners because of the never ending supply of grass 
and water. In addition he was a walking encyclo- 
paedia — about as well informed a man as you would 
meet in a lifetime. On the trip to Cuba he had 
projected an association which was to be called the 
" Military Order of the Morro." Colonel Wood 
was interested and suggested a name which was 
substituted, to-wit : '' The Military Order of the 
Foreign Wars of the Republic." Eventually the 
association became the " Rough Riders' Associa- 
tion." 

On the afternoon of Guasimas Captain O'Neill 
was already at work getting up a regimental raffle 
for the dead Captain Capron's horse. He expected 
to be able to send Captain Capron's widow several 
hundred dollars for the horse and then give her the 
horse. Before he had time from his many duties 
to complete all the arrangements other officers had 
to take it in charge and a similar one for his own 
widow. 

The guns of the men were new to them, and they 
seem to have been constructed with an especial 
view to accidental discharge. At any rate they 
were often discharged accidentally not only in our 
camp but in many others. Then the comrades of 
the man who was careless would yell : 



158 FUN AND FIGHTING 

" Take it away from him — take it away from 
him." 

This became quite the fashion and could be heard 
throughout the campaign. 

Late in the afternoon some sentinels at our front 
dragged in a poor bewildered little wretch of swar- 
thy hue. He wore an almost complete Spanish 
uniform, and they had spotted him for a spy. The 
regiment turned out en masse near headquarters 
to have a look at him. The poor fellow was fright- 
ened out of his wits, sank on his knees and raised 
his hands in an attitude of prayer, supplicating 
mercy. The men laughed — not at him but at the 
idea that they would hurt him. Then they turned 
away and went back to their tents in order to soothe 
his fears. 

Captain Luna, who could speak Spanish like 
a native, was called and talked with the man. He 
claimed to be a Cuban. He was taken to the 
guard-house and furnished with a better meal than 
the men had had. He ate voraciously, sitting on 
the ground with a grim-looking six-foot sentry 
posted behind him. The meal assuaged his fears. 
Cubans were sent for and identified him as one of 
their own, and he was released. He had probably 
obtained his wardrobe from some dead Spaniard. 

Late in the evening an orderly from brigade 



IN CAMP ON A BATTLEFIELD 159 

headquarters visited me and asked for my tri- 
monthly return for the past two periods of ten days 
in June. I looked at him in blank astonishment. 
A tri-monthly return was a new one on me and I 
told him so. He wanted to grin but did not dare 
to. Then he politely explained that it was a digest 
of the regimental morning report for the preceding 
ten days and that another would be due the 30th. 
I explained feebly that by diligence and persever- 
ance I had been able to accumulate a bottle of par- 
ticularly watery ink and a steel pen that had seen 
better days, also a few sheets of mouldy uniform 
paper. But, I added that I had no regimental 
morning report, no blank tri-monthly returns and, 
in fact, no blanks of any kind. He gazed at me 
with a look of blank astonishment and seemed to 
want to utter blanks, but the right to utter such I 
had been reserving for my own use on just such 
an occasion. 

Eventually he confided to me the cheerful fact 
that he had one spare blank at headquarters which 
he would give to me in order that I might turn in 
the return for the ten days ending June 20th so 
that they could furnish Division Headquarters 
with their own return. This saved me from mak- 
ing out five others, for three were required for each 
ten days. One went to brigade headquarters, one 



i6o FUN AND FIGHTING 

to the Adjutant General of the Army and one was 
to be kept by myself. I never got those that 
were to be kept by myself and I am inclined to 
believe the Adjutant General never got his. I 
spent the rest of the day trying to study out what 
the single blank furnished me meant and trying 
to fill it with the information required. This had 
to be culled from the troop morning reports, and 
as some of these were lost it was a most unsatis- 
factory job as well as an aggravating one. I 
wasted so much time over it that I had none left 
to secure subscriptions to the new paper. I have 
always been sorry for that. Perhaps the subscrip- 
tions would have saved the life of the paper. In 
a few weeks it expired. In the midst of life it was 
in death. 

But the thought of another tri-monthly return 
to make out on the 30th tortured my waking mo- 
ments and filled my sleep with horrid dreams 
nightly. On the 30th, however, the regiment 
marched to El Paso. In the excitement of the 
following days even brigade and division head- 
quarters forgot the tri-monthly returns and asked 
for no more. I did not remind them. 



CHAPTER XIV 

BETWEEN BATTLES 

On the morning of the 25th of June the seven 
Rough Riders who, besides Captain Capron, had 
been killed the day before were buried by the 
side of the road on which the Spaniards had re- 
treated. The position of each body was carefully 
noted and three copies of the memorandum made. 
One was carried by Colonel Wood, another by 
Chaplain Brown and the third by myself. The 
grave was afterwards marked by the Cubans with 
a cross made of stones, and a monument, I under- 
stand, has sincebeen erected. The regiment and the 
guests at headquarters attended. No volleys were 
fired for fear of giving an alarm to some of the 
other regiments camped near us, but melancholy 
taps were sounded over the grave and the Chaplain 
held the usual service, hymns being sung by the 
whole regiment. 

The day was spent in cleaning guns, talking 
over the battle, struggling for rations and obtain- 
ing a fresh supply of ammunition. Troops were 
II 161 



i62 FUN AND FIGHTING 

again being pushed by us to the front, and more 
were put into camp near us. In the afternoon 
my horse arrived as unexpectedly as my bedding 
and clothes did the night before. He was in sorry 
shape and very seasick. I was not able to ride 
him for several days, but when we moved I could 
carry my few effects on him. 

All the effects found on the battlefield and un- 
claimed were brought to headquarters and grad- 
ually found owners. Those who could not identify 
property and were short were then provided out 
of the remainder (which undoubtedly belonged to 
the dead and wounded), and soon the regiment 
was as well provided as it had been before the 
struggle. There was even a considerable surplus, 
especially in the matter of arms, for all those be- 
longing to the dead and wounded were left at the 
front as a matter of course. About twenty per 
cent, of the regiment had been killed and wounded 
in the battle. 

On the previous evening Colonel Roosevelt de- 
clared that we should be known henceforth as the 
" Rough Riders " among ourselves as well as 
among the people ; and Colonel Wood had named 
*'L" troop "Capron's Troop" and issued orders 
that such was thereafter to be its official designa- 
tion. It was now commanded by Lieutenant 



BETWEEN BATTLES 163 

Day, its 2d Lieutenant. Sickness began to make 
its appearance among the men ; and on this day I 
received notice that Leroy E. Tomlinson, a private 
of " B " troop, had died on the Olivette on the 
23d and had been buried at Daiquiri. 

Among the other troops that passed us to the 
front were the three regiments of regular cavalry 
constituting the first brigade. They were individ- 
ually and collectively disgusted at not getting 
into the first battle of the war. The second bri- 
gade became uneasy now, supposing that the first 
would be given the next chance, and their being 
moved to the front seemed to indicate such an 
arrangement. The second was soon ordered to 
move on, however, and camp was quickly broken 
and the brigade moved forward some three or four 
miles to a new camping place. 

Short though this march was in distance it was 
distressingly long in time. Regiments were in 
front of us and behind us, the road was blocked, 
and as is always the case under such conditions 
the marching was mainly waiting in the road. 
We would march a couple of hundred yards and 
then wait about half an hour. The sun's rays 
were directly overhead, and the atmosphere was 
boiling hot. The foliage on either side of the road 
was tall and thick, but it afforded no shade, and 



i64 FUN AND FIGHTING 

would have screened us from any breeze that 
might have been stirring. A number of the men 
were prostrated by the heat, and Dr. Church, 
strong and healthy as he was, nearly gave out him- 
self. To add to the misery, general officers and 
their staffs, aides, couriers and pack trains trotted 
through the ranks, breaking up formations and 
raising a stifling dust. 

When our camping-ground was eventually 
reached it was disappointing. It lay between the 
road and a small creek at the base of the foot-hills 
of the mountains, to which we were now nearer 
than ever before. In plain view on the summit 
of the range three Spanish blockhouses could be 
distinctly seen. The new camping-ground was 
bristling with brushwood, and it was quite a job 
to get to the point selected for headquarters. 
This was by a particularly spreading mango tree 
which had evidently been used by the enemy for 
the same purpose but a few days before. We 
could have reached the point without trouble by 
passing through a small portion of the camp of 
the mounted squadron which adjoined ours, but 
they would not permit it. 

The heat and the wretched conditions of the 
campaign had begun to tell on every one's nerves, 
and ill-temper was to be expected almost every- 



BETWEEN BATTLES 165 

where. Already officers and men were beginning 
to come down with the fever. It attacked Gen- 
eral Young the next day ; he became delirious and 
was eventually obliged to leave the island. Gen- 
eral Wheeler, too, was on the sick list off and on. 
This action of the mounted squadron was not to 
its advantage, however. Our camp included the 
best watering-place for horses within a consider- 
able distance, and it had been the custom of the 
mounted squadron to lead their horses to water 
through the very ground on which our headquar- 
ters was situated. This was immediately stopped 
by placing sentinels around the camp with in- 
structions to keep the mounted squadron well 
away from headquarters, and they were obliged 
to make an annoying detour. They had been 
grazing their horses throughout our camp. This 
was also stopped. The rain now became a feature 
of every day's life and misery. Deep drains were 
a necessity, as the flat ground was actually water- 
soaked and implements for disturbing the natural 
repose of the crust of the soil were in great 
demand. By persistent and skilful hustling the 
Rough Riders had now acquired an abundant 
supply of these implements. The mounted squad- 
ron was without them, at least In sufficient num- 
ber, and after standing a drenching or two raised 



i66 FUN AND FIGHTING 

the white flag and came over singly and in groups 
to borrow of us. It is needless to say that they 
were not refused though they were held to a strict 
accountability for the return of the implements. 
The Rough Riders could hustle for themselves, 
but had no anxiety to be hustled against. 

In all the commands constant guards had to be 
kept on the river to prevent men, and even officers, 
from bathing in it and washing clothes and dishes 
in it. This was not only for the protection of 
each regiment, but for the protection of regiments 
further down the river. 

A number of scouting parties were now sent out 
by the regiment under command of some of the 
ambitious and energetic youngsters, like Lieuten- 
ants Greenway, Franz, Goodrich and Keyes. 
These brought back supplies of mangoes ripe, 
luscious, and awkward to eat. To eat a mango 
with comfort, one requires a capacious bib, four 
napkins, two finger bowls, a bath towel, bath tub, 
plenty of water and a month's supply of soap. 
He also requires the services of a physician and 
possibly those of a trained nurse and an under- 
taker. Physicians should flock to Cuba and take 
with them their favourite undertakers, though the 
latter would have to compete with the native vul- 
tures. 



BETWEEN BATTLES 167 

In fact Cuba is a curious country. If it could 
be roofed over and walled with wire screens it 
would be a paradise. The drainage from such a 
roof would supply the whole world with fresh 
water and refill the great lakes after Niagara, and 
the Chicago Drainage Canal had drained them 
dry. While such a roof might throw Cuba in the 
shade, family washings could be hung out on it 
and dried in the space of ten minutes. The roof 
would also supply good bicycle paths, which are 
greatly needed in the Pearl of the Antilles. Take 
it all in all, this scheme is worthy the attention of 
Congress. 

Before going to Cuba we had been solemnly 
warned that every soldier should take a hammock 
with him on the campaign. Perhaps he should. 
He should also have taken a summer hotel. As 
none of these things was supplied none but a few 
of the officers had hammocks. This was the only 
camp where we seriously tried to use them. They 
were swung in the tentage from posts sunk in the 
soil. No matter how deeply the posts were sunk 
or how securely braced and held with guy ropes 
they constantly ** gave " in the mushy, rain-soaked 
soil. We would retire at night, swinging perilously 
five feet from the ground, and awake in the morn- 
ing reclining on the soil. 



i68 FUN AND FIGHTING 

The men adapted themselves at once to tropical 
conditions and began using sugarcane and bamboo 
for every conceivable purpose. Mugs, cups, pipes, 
pitchers, pails, floors, roofs, walls, beds, chairs — 
all were made from them. Limes were gathered 
and made into a very refreshing limonade, and 
some even attempted to eat green pineapples. 
But it must not be thought that the directions of 
the medical department as to the eating of fruit 
were generally disregarded. In fact, as many of 
the regulations concerning health were followed as 
possible. If all had been strictly enforced there 
would have been time to do nothing else, and the 
army would still have been at Daiquiri. 

Dr. Church, probably because he was a medical 
officer and therefore better able to care for him- 
self than any one else, was assigned a spot for his 
shelter tent which happened to be just below the 
level of the remainder of the camp. When the 
first storm came all the other tents had been sur- 
rounded by drainage ditches. He had been busy 
looking after his fellow man ; and, as is quite usual 
in this world of wickedness, his fellow man, had 
not been looking after him. As the deluge de- 
scended, Church crawled into his little tent, smil- 
ingly declining the shelter of my own, where a 
number were congregated. He thought he would 



BETWEEN BATTLES 169 

smoke a cigarette and read a letter during the 
storm. It was not so ordained. First his tent 
began to leak, which is the natural prerogative of 
a " shelter " tent. Then the soil under him be- 
came saturated. Then a family of tarantulas 
which had been holding a birthday reception under 
his bedding crawled out and looked askance at 
him. Then he looked askance at them. 

At this interesting juncture the ditches around 
the various other tents filled simultaneously and 
overflowed into their outlet ditches. These latter 
were pointed naturally toward lowest ground, and 
a tidal wave moved toward the doctor. Some- 
body laughed. Then all laughed. The doctor 
did not. He removed his clothes, exhibiting a 
muscular figure that had carried the pig-skin 
through rush line barriers many times for Prince- 
ton ; and, grabbing a spade from the supply pile, 
began the construction of an elaborate canal. 
His idea, born of necessity, was to build a drainage 
ditch that would drain the whole camp. This he 
did single handed, getting a refreshing bath at the 
same time. His engineering was excellent, his 
contractor honest, labour A i, and by dint of an 
afternoon's work he succeeded in protecting four- 
teen square feet of ground for his own use. 

A few yards from Church's tent the Chaplain 



I70 FUN AND FIGHTING 

had erected his. Some foreign officers were now 
guests at headquarters as well as one or two news- 
paper men. They had gone forward with an 
armed reconnaissance from Lawton's division, 
which was again in front. They had left their 
lariats lying on the ground. The Chaplain needed 
rope to swing his hammock. Now the Chaplain 
was an honest man, but he had lived most of his 
life in the far west. Even after leaving Rome 
one often continues to '' do as the Romans do." 
The Chaplain spied those two precious lariats and 
soon had his hammock swinging. Later the 
foreign officers returned. They had to stand and 
hold their horses until some one explained matters 
to the Chaplain. Then he good-naturedly apolo- 
gized and returned the lariats. 

One of these visiting officers was an Englishman. 
Conversation at dinner one day fell on matters 
governmental, and numerous stories were told of 
various government officials. They were all stories 
of interest, and many of them humorous. The 
English officer was deeply impressed and was tak- 
ing them very seriously. In a lull in the conver- 
sation he suddenly burst out : 

"Well, gentlemen, from what you have been 
saying I must say I cannot see any reason why 
we should change our form of government." 



BETWEEN BATTLES 171 

This was followed by a deathly silence, which 
continued during the rest of the meal. 

One of the most amusing incidents of the cam- 
paign and at the same time one of the most idio- 
tic, occurred in this camp. A member of the 
guard called me to one of the remote sentinel's 
posts. On my arrival there I found an immense 
pile of boxes of ammunition flanked by a similar 
pile of rations. Two officers, one of the brigade 
and one of the corps staff were awaiting me. 

" We want a special guard put over this stuff," 
said the member of the corps staff, *' three privates 
and a sergeant." 

I gave the necessary directions at once. Then 
he told me the orders to be given to the sergeant 
of this guard. No one was to be permitted to 
take anything from either of these two piles of 
ammunition and rations excepting by order from 
himself or from the other staff officer present. 
Then he conferred with his colleague and amended 
this. In case the army was attacked or a battle 
brought on the ammunition was to be supplied 
to such regiments as needed it. I told him that 
I would convey the orders to Colonel Wood and 
that the guard would be established at once. 

" No, you won't do anything of the kind," 
growled the staff officer ** I want you to under- 



1/2 FUN AND FIGHTING 

stand distinctly that Colonel Wood is to have 
nothing to do with this." 

I expostulated, reminding him that Colonel 
Wood was in command of the regiment and 
would necessarily be in command of this guard 
detail. 

That made no difference to him except to in- 
crease his vehemence and uncover his wrath. He 
insisted that no one but the sergeant in charge 
should have anything to say about the disposal 
of the stores he was guarding, and then only un- 
der the instructions given. 

I smiled and asked him sweetly if the sergeant 
was to be the judge of the amount of ammunition 
that might be needed by a regiment on the line. 
This necessitated another conference, and the in- 
structions were again amended. This time the 
sergeant was to let any regiment take as much 
ammunition as it wanted in case of a fight. The 
amendment was certainly comprehensive. That 
staff officer was probably fearing that Colonel 
Wood might take the whole supply of ammuni- 
tion over to Santiago and capture the town single 
handed. There was no fight at this place, and 
the ammunition was eventually taken further for- 
ward, but it may please the staff officer to know 
that his special guard was always under the 



BETWEEN BATTLES 173 

direct command of Colonel Wood and bound to 
obey the latter's orders concerning all things. 

There was plenty of work to do in this camp. 
A regimental morning report was required every 
morning, and in trying to work it out correctly I 
found many mistakes in the troop morning reports 
with which I was more familiar. We took the 
opportunity of the rest to get these things 
straight. In this I was greatly helped by a Wall 
Street broker who willingly accepted the humble 
position of headquarters clerk provided he could 
be with his troop in battle. His name was Van 
Schaick and he was worth his weight in gold, and 
with gold at a good premium. 

There was a constant battle with the elements, 
too, and at night all hands were tired enough to 
long for sleep — all save one. This was one of 
our guests, the one whom I had offended by 
laughing at his awkwardness in mounting a mule. 
From taps till his tongue got tired he talked. 
Hour after hour my sleepless tent mate and I ex- 
changed oaths on the subject, whispered oaths for 
he was a guest. Finally one morning I resorted 
to gentle sarcasm. I told him that I had been 
enjoying his evening animadversions very much 
indeed. He bit, but not in the way I expected. 
He missed the sarcasm, took the statement sen- 



174 FUN AND FIGHTING 

ously and expressed himself as greatly pleased. 
He had once or twice feared that he was keeping 
us awake — but etc., etc. 

On the opposite side of the road the light artil- 
lery went into camp. With it was Captain Capron, 
the father of our dead Capron. The latter s 
effects were gathered together and two members 
of the regiment went to Captain Capron's tent to 
give them to him, express their sympathy, and 
tell him of the disposition that was being made of 
Capron's horse. The Captain w^ould not receive 
the things. He was terribly affected by the death 
of his son, who I believe was the third he had 
lost, and was very bitter. 

Morning and afternoon the regimental bands in 
the various camps gave concerts. The patriotic 
tunes were wildly cheered, regiment after regi- 
ment taking up the cheering. When one night a 
band played " A Hot Time" the Rough Riders 
got up en masse and yelled themselves hoarse. 



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CHAPTER XV 

ON TO SAN JUAN 

On the afternoon of the 30th of June the regi- 
ment received orders to break camp again and 
march to the front. Colonel Wood, by virtue of 
his rank had now been put in command of our 
brigade on account of General Young's absence, 
sick. Colonel Roosevelt, therefore, commanded 
the regiment from this day till it v/as disbanded 
September 15th, 1898. 

This was another hot dusty march, but not so 

tiresome a journey as the last, though longer. 

Troops were in front of us as usual, but for the 

first part of the march there were not so many, 

and the road was more open, Toward the end, 

however, the troops in front began to bank up. 

In some way or other we got separated from the 

rest of the brigade and began to have troubles of 

our own again. Eventually one of our division 

staff appeared and told us that there was another 

road a trifle to the south of the main one, and that 

by cutting across and taking this we could make 

^1S 



176 FUN AND FIGHTING 

up our lost time. This was immediately done 
and we stole quite a march on the infantry, 
almost catching up with the other regiments of 
our brigade. 

By taking this road we passed Corps Head- 
quarters and Division Hospital, the latter the 
scene the next day and for several days afterwards 
of sights too harrowing to be described except in 
the cold, scientific language of the surgeon. Some 
distance beyond we again joined the regular line. 
Two regiments of infantry were halted in column 
of fours directly in front of us filling uj) the road. 
Colonel Roosevelt was not to be stopped by this 
and, calling to the infantry to give way, pushed on. 
A part of the regiment got through all right, but 
the rear end of the regiment was split up and con- 
siderably delayed, getting into El Poso some time 
after the arrival of the other. 

All the way up the road we had been in plain 
sight of the balloon of the signal corps from which 
observations had been taken of the enemy. All 
the observations of value were taken this day, and 
if they had not attempted to use the balloon on 
the next many lives would have been saved. 

We reached El Poso at dusk. The 1st and loth 
Cavalry were already in camp on the higher ground 
behind Grimes' battery of Artillery. We camped 



ON TO SAN JUAN 177 

immediately in the vicinity of the single adobe 
house and barn which is all that is necessary to 
form a Cuban town with a high sounding title. 
Incidentally every third town in Cuba is named 
San Jos^, San Luis or San Juan. 

The camp was a miserable one, crowded with 
soldiers, teams, horses, mules, teamsters, a battery 
of Hotchkiss mountain cannon and what not. 
Fires were soon burning brightly, supper cooking 
and every one was getting in every one else's way. 
However, we all knew that the Spaniards were 
now but a mile and a half away. It was a bright 
moonlit night, or matters would have been still 
more uncomfortable than they were. 

Immediately after arriving in camp I started to 
mount the guard. The first call had hardly died 
away from the lips of the bugle when a general offi- 
cer and a member of his staff rushed down to expos- 
tulate with me and try to convince me that I was 
a perfect fool. The ground of their contention 
was that I had had bugle calls sounded when the 
enemy were but a mile and a half away, thus ex- 
posing the location of our forces to the enemy. 
1 did not stop to remonstrate or explain that 
bugle calls were not supposed to be abolished even 
in battle. But I glanced thoughtfully at the half 
dozen roaring camp fires not twenty yards away. 



178 FUN AND FIGHTING 

" Of course," growled the officer, " they can see 
the fires. I know that." 

I did not congratulate him. Then he lit into 
me for thinking of mounting a guard in the pres- 
ence of the enemy. I did not explain that a 
guard was more necessary then that at any other 
time. 

'' Keep your old guard on," he continued. I 
had sense enough not to call his attention to the 
fact that the Articles of War expressly forbid 
keeping a man on guard duty more than twenty- 
four hours. There is no use in arguing with a man 
whose nerves are a jangle and who has lost his 
temper. I promptly gave orders to dismiss the 
guard. At this the officer's wits returned, and he 
said : 

" Well, as long as you have got them in ranks 
go ahead and mount them." 

So I had to revoke my last orders. Then he 
ordered me to reduce the size of the guard, which 
I did. After the guard had passed out of my 
hands I believe it was reduced again. I suppose 
in the presence of the enemy guards are useless. 

Captain O'Neill and '^A" troop were sent up 
the road toward the Morro as an outpost by order 
of Colonel Roosevelt, supper was eventually cooked 
and beds made down, though again there was a 



ON TO SAN JUAN 179 

dearth of bedding, much of the impedimenta hav- 
ing been left behind under a small guard. Supper 
was late. Reveille was ordered (without the bugle) 
for 4 A. M., and there was little sleep that night in 
consequence. In addition to the other disturbing 
causes regiments were passing by, and our other 
brigade came along to camp by us. Personally I 
was too sick to eat well or sleep. Cadet (acting 
and later actual lieutenant) Haskell was in an even 
worse state. He could not even eat any break- 
fast. 

" Well," he said, philosophically, " they ought 
not to be able to hit me in the bowels." That 
was just where he was wounded. On the day 
previous O'Neill with characteristic confidence 
had declared that the Spanish bullet which was to 
kill him " had not yet been moulded." It was 
then being carried around by a Spaniard, who 
would have thrown it away if he had known what 
kind of a man it was going to kill. 

After the unnecessarily early breakfast we 
waited — as usual. Nothing was to be done until 
we heard Lawton's guns, and Lawton did not be- 
gin until about 7:30. It was understood that he 
was to take El Caney in two hours and then join 
the main army on the right in the attack on San 
Juan Heights and Kettle Hill. 



180 FUN AND FIGHTING 

About eight o'clock Grimes' battery, which was 
situated on high ground to the left of El Poso, 
opened on the defences and blockhouses of San 
Juan which were in plain sight. It fired over the 
heads of the various regiments passing to the front 
on the road, did little or no damage, puffed out 
great clouds of smoke and gave the enemy a tar- 
get as big as the side of a ship. Did they need 
a target ? It is doubtful. They could see the 
adobe house at El Poso and the whole regiment 
of Rough Riders crowded around it. Grimes con- 
tinued firing, and off to our right and front Law- 
ton's guns (Capron's battery) were still booming 
away. It was a calm clear morning, and the heat 
was already intense. The river (a small creek) 
where water was obtained was some considerable 
distance away, and later most of the men went 
into battle with empty or nearly empty canteens. 

After Grimes had fired a score of shots or more 
there was a dull roar and sailing in our direction, 
clearly in evidence against the pale blue back- 
ground of sky, came a round shell with a little 
thread of white smoke trailing from its fuse. Some 
of the men started to seek cover, slowly without 
panic and with commendable good sense. 

*' Here, what's the matter with you ? " yelled a 
staff officer who had been watching the bombard- 



ON TO SAN JUAN i8i 

ment through his field glasses. " That's only a 
shell." 

It was only a shell, but the men had more sense 
than he had. They had been talking together 
and were naturally wondering why they were put 
in such an exposed position. 

" You can bet your life," said one of the men, 
*' those Spaniards know the exact distance to this 
hill and they'll fire right into us." 

A number of officers expressed the same opinion, 
but no effort was made to move the men. 

The shell burst in the air, doing no damage. 
Grimes* battery responded spitefully. They be- 
lieved they had uncovered the enemy's battery. 
It was now a duel between modern breech-loading 
rifled fieldpieces and old-fashioned muzzle-load- 
ing smooth-bores. But the Spanish were using 
smokeless powder in their smooth-bores and had 
a better target. 

When the shell burst some of the men laughed. 
Calm was restored, and the officer who had pre- 
dicted that a mere shell would do no damage looked 
proud. There was another dull roar, a second 
shell came along. The men laughed again. It 
exploded right among them, coming like a rail- 
road train, so fast the senses could not measure its 
speed with any accuracy at all. 



i82 FUN AND FIGHTING 

The comities of the occasion ceased at once. 
The regiment retired down the slope of the hill 
upon which the house and stable constituting El 
Poso were situate. The second shell had killed and 
wounded a number of men Colonel Roosevelt 
was hit on the back of the hand by one of the 
spent bullets which it contained. I took the 
liberty of applying an old soldier's axiom of which 
I had read. I predicted that he would not be hit 
again during the engagement — and he was not. 

Personally I made a bee-line for my horse, which 
was tied to a bush nearby. After untying him I 
started for the edge of the hill. Before going 
twenty feet I saw in my path a man with one of 
the most sickening wounds I saw during the cam- 
paign. His leg had been hit by a piece of this 
second shell and lay open, bleeding profusely. 

" Please get me out of here," said the man 
quietly. 

" All right," I answered, half wonderingly, for I 
did not know just how I was going to do it. I 
happened to look up. Surgeon LaMotteand two 
of his assistants were coming towards me. Luck 
was with me. I turned the man over to them and 
made for the edge of the hill over which the regi- 
ment seemed to have disappeared. 

The surface of the slope of this hill was some- 



ON TO SAN JUAN 183 

what similar to the surface of part of a truncated 
cone. Part of the regiment went down what 
might be called one " side " and part the other. 
They separated from each other, rather naturally 
as the fire of the enemy was directed at the right 
centre of the slope. Again, as luck would have 
it, a queer incident occurred. General Wood and 
Colonel Roosevelt went down one side, while 
General Wood's staff, with possibly one or two 
exceptions, and Colonel Roosevelt's staff (myself) 
went down the other. 

For a time the shell fire of the enemy was accu- 
rate and destructive. They seemed to know the 
ground to an inch. But they evidently ran out of 
ammunition, or appeared to do so, for suddenly 
the fire ceased. Grimes' battery fired a few more 
shots, and it was announced that they had silenced 
the fire of the enemy. That this was not the case 
is proved by the fact that the same battery of the 
enemy opened up again for some time during the 
charge. They were probably husbanding their 
ammunition. 

In the meantime General Lawton was pounding 
away at El Caney. His battery seemed to be 
doing about as well as our own. He had a divi- 
sion and a brigade against a bare five hundred 
Spaniards. His two hours were up, and he had 



i84 FUN AND FIGHTING 

not yet made an Impression on the enemy. Why 
this movement on Caney was made is a mystery of 
our strategy. Why the Spaniards defended it so 
desperately is another mystery. If Lawton had 
fought with the main body of the army of July 
1st the Spaniards Avould have been flanked and 
beaten with half the loss to the American force 
which they had to suffer. Moreover when the 
heights of San Juan were taken El Caney would 
have been untenable and the Spaniards would 
have had to hurry from it into their lines at San- 
tiago to escape capture — and even this they might 
not have been able to do. As it was, they main- 
tained their fight until late in the afternoon. Of 
the five hundred who defended the town fully one- 
fourth escaped, and they killed and wounded 
about five hundred Americans. It was a useless 
victory, won at an awful cost. 

It might be urged that the Spanish force at El 
Caney threatened our line of communications ; but 
our line of communications was always open to 
attack. An alert, aggressive enemy would have 
broken it at will and brought the 5th Corps 
to an about-face and a hasty retrograde move- 
ment. 

Why this was never done the other side may 
explain, if it can. 



ON TO SAN JUAN 185 

Two very pretty stories are told about this fight 
at Caney. After one of the Spanish trenches had 
been cleaned out a white flag was raised. Two 
Spanish officers appeared immediately and started 
for Lawton's line. They were smoking cigarettes, 
laughing and chatting as amiably as though they 
were out for a morning stroll. They had done 
all they could. There was no possibility of 
retreat, and they surrendered with good judgment 
and utter sang froid. When the charge began on 
the stone blockhouse the Spanish commander 
knew that his part of the jig was up. It was 
reported that he came to the door of the block- 
house and waved a white flag. It was too late. 
There is no stopping a charge save by bullets 
from the front. When the officer realised the 
situation he went back into the house only to 
return with a Spanish flag which he wrapped about 
him as he took his place in the doorway awaiting 
his death. 

One of the Infantry regiments was terribly cut 
up by the Spaniards during the Caney episode. 
They were as good a regiment as is made, but 
they got all they bargained for and more. I dined 
at their headquarters a few days later, after the 
truce had been declared, and one of the officers 
declared that he would not object if the truce 



i86 FUN AND FIGHTING 

lasted for the rest of his Hfe — a sentiment that aj>- 
peared to have many supporters. They had 
plenty of admiration for Spanish marksmanship 
and for the Mauser rifle — and they had reason to 
have it. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE BATTLE OF SAN JUAN 
About nine o'clock the Roue^h Riders were as- 



'iD' 



sembled and began another advance toward San- 
tiago. The shell fire had hurt them, but had not 
disconcerted them to the extent that is usual with 
new troops. It had been a matter of a few 
minutes' wonder and that is all. 

The road on which the re^^iment advanced was 
lined with infantry who were halted to give the 
cavalry division right of way. An occasional 
bullet singing through the trees gave notice that 
the guerrillas were ready for work. Off. in front 
the Spanish regulars were calmly waiting. The 
morning was intolerably hot. No attempt was 
made to carry the Colt guns with thp regiment. 
They and all the impedimenta, even the haver- 
sacks, were left behind. It was a day on which 
no man could carry an ounce more than neces- 
sary. Six of our officers (including myself) were 
overcome by the heat during the day, and a pro- 
portionate number of men. 

General Sumner with a part of his staff was 

187 



i88 FUN AND FIGHTING 

standing by the side of the road about fifty yards 
south of the ford, which later in the day became 
the site of the field hospital. It was there that 
surgeons were killed by sharp-shooters, wounded 
re-wounded, and ambulances fired on in spite 
of their red cross. This was the ford of the 
Aguadores river, a muddy little stream quite un- 
worthy of the fame now attached to it. The regi- 
ment halted while Colonel Roosevelt awaited 
instructions from General Sumner. The latter 
and some other ofificers were holding a consultation 
with Colonel Miley of General Shafter's staff. 
At this moment Captain Howze, adjutant-general 
on General Sumner's staff, rode up and reported 
to General Sumner that the ist brigade of the 
Cavalry Division was in position. 

'' They are waiting to go at 'em," said Howze 
grimly. Then there was another consultation. 
Finally Colonel Miley apparently gave in. 

" Well,'* said he, "you gentlemen are older men 
than I am." General Sumner immediately gave: 
directions to Colonel Roosevelt to cross the; 
Aguadores about fifty yards up the river from' 
the first-mentioned ford, and make his way to the 
extreme right and endeavour to connect witln 
General Lawton, who by this time should have 
been moving west on the road from Caney to 



THE BATTLE OF SAN JUAN 1S9 

join flanks. The movement was to be made in 
line of skirmishers " moving by the right flank." 
The movement was made with difficulty, owing 
to the underbrush. As usual " L" troop was in 
advance and became the advance guard, and with 
it went Colonel Roosevelt, Captain McCormick and 
myself. About three troops had crossed when an 
orderly from General Sumner brought commands 
to Colonel Roosevelt to send orders to each troop 
commander to throw out flankers to the front, 
and to be sure not to fire at the ist and loth 
Cavalry, who were already deployed, and whom 
we were gradually uncovering. I took the order 
to each troop commander, and at the ford told 
each one of the rear troops as they crossed. On 
the bank where I stood were General Sumner and 
Captain Howze. The movement continued. As 
the men crossed the river nearly every one tried 
to fill his canteen. This General Sumner ordered 
me to stop, and I had to do so, often rather 
severely. I fancy not one man knew or thought 
I was acting under orders, and I can imagine that 
I was thoroughly and artistically cursed by the 
thirsty men. War would seem much kinder if an 
offlcer could stop and explain the reason for 
many of his seeming cruelties. 

Suddenly the men halted. The General ordered 



190 FUN AND FIGHTING 

me to send them on. I took a look and found 
that they were halted far in advance and could 
not go further and keep their proper distances. 
Then he ordered me to send an officer to our 
Colonel with instructions to go ahead. Lieu- 
enant Haskell was the only ofificer in sight and he 
transmitted the order. The bullets were already 
" phewing'' about us, and Haskell was hit in the 
stomach just after delivering his message. After 
notifying the commanding officer of the last 
troop I went again to the front. The head of 
the column had come across a picket of six men 
who claimed to be Cubans. After a consultation 
in which Captain Luna again acted as interpreter, 
Colonel Roosevelt decided that they were Cubans 
— there were some Cuban intrenchments to our 
right and rear — and let them go. They proceeded 
directly to the front and three of them disap- 
peared. The other three could be seen in trees 
about a thousand yards in our front. They m.ust 
have been much nearer the Spanish trenches than 
they were to us, and probably more visible to the 
Spaniards. Whether they were Cubans or guer- | 
rillas is still a question. 

The fire was becoming hotter and hotter every 
moment, especially on the right where all the 
horses were. The underbrush concealed the of- 



THE BATTLE OF SAN JUAN 191 

ficers and men, but not always the horses. The 
latter, too, made more disturbance passing through 
the brush. Suddenly the regiment was halted 
and moved forward a few yards to take advantage 
of the cover afforded by the road, which was sunk 
about three feet below the general level. I got 
permission from Colonel Roosevelt to place a 
picket of six men in a clump of trees on our ex- 
treme right, to watch the front and flank. When 
I reported to him he was bending over Haskell and 
promising him a commission in the regular army 
— which I think he got later. Lieutenant Wilcox 
was lying by Haskell, completely prostrated by the 
heat, which was simply unbearable, but which had 
to be borne. The heavy guns of the Spanish war- 
ships in the harbour were now firing directly over 
our heads at the balloon behind us. These were 
heavy shells. There was no ''whizzing" about 
them. They did not even " scream " or " shriek " 
as writers so often say. They simply " smashed " 
through the air. They were accompanied by the 
" phewing" of countless Mauser bullets, nearly all 
fired at the same object. About a thousand yards 
in our rear, perhaps more, infantry were advancing, 
and they received the worst part of the fire at the 
balloon. It must have been maddening to them — 
to be fired at and not to be able to return the fire. 



192 FUN AND FIGHTING 

That balloon was another of the curiosities of the 
campaign. Why it was sent up on this second day 
no one has yet explained. Its work had been 
done the day before. A good part of the gas had 
escaped, and it could only rise a short distance. 
The signal corps would have been better employed 
putting up a field telephone wire. This was done 
a day or two later. 

I went back to the picket. In front of our line 
at this time was a moderately open field covered 
with thick, tall yellow grass. Our regiment should 
have advanced, when the time came, directly over 
this field. It would have been fairly well hidden, 
and would have turned the flank of the Spanish 
left. If Lawton had been in place and in the bat- 
tle, it can be seen, therefore, how easily a simple 
advance of his division would have driven the 
Spaniards back into Santiago, and it would have 
spread their fire over more than one-half greater 
distance. Just the opposite move was made, how- 
ever. Instead of spreading out the line it was 
massed up. To every one's amazement the regi- 
ment was ordered back to the left. That accounts 
for its passing over the lines of the regulars in the 
charge on what was called " Kettle Hill." 

Not only did the regiment bank up behind 
others, but its right was also banked up. Three 



THE BATTLE OF SAN JUAN 193 

companies advanced, one behind the other. It is 
no wonder that the casualties were great here. On 
this bunch of men the Spaniards poured in a con- 
tinuous fire, accompanied by an artillery fire that 
was limited in destructiveness only by their short- 
age in ammunition for their guns. 

The regiment advanced on the detached hill on 
the left of the Spanish position, just mentioned. 
The right of the regiment rested on and advanced 
along a barbed-wire fence, one of two that enclosed 
a road leading directly to the house situated at the 
top of the hill. The Spaniards occupied the house, 
the intrenchments around it and even some sugar 
kettles at the side of it. The ground was dotted 
with trees and shrubbery, which afforded conceal- 
ment in the halts, but little protection. The 
ground sloped from this detached hill to the main 
heights, and between them was a small pond. 
The infantry and part of the cavalry stormed the 
heights on the left, which were also crowned by a 
house and intrenchments. On account of the 
peculiarity of the Spanish position and the inabil- 
ity to tell just where their fire came from, there 
was some confusion. One regiment of our bri- 
gade advancing came upon part of another. They 
found that they were advancing at right angles 

to each other. 
13 



194 FUN AND FIGHTING 

" They told me the Spaniards were over there,*' 
said Colonel Viele, of the 1st Cavalry, pointing to 
one of the hills. 

" They told us," answered Captain Beck, of the 
loth Cavalry, " that they were over there," point- 
ing to the other hill. 

Colonel Roosevelt was in a fine Berserker rage. 
He rode his horse in the first part of the advance, 
and without a sword and with a blue polka dot 
handkerchief fastened behind his worn campaign 
hat, was a more earnest than picturesque figure. 

" Well, come on," he shouted, when the line had 
been formed for the advance. 

Not a man moved. 

" What, are you cowards? " he fairly shrieked. 

A tall man in the skirmish line some forty feet 
away brought his gun to a " port arms." 

" We're waiting for the command," said the 
man, who grinned as did the men around him. 
The Colonel had forgotten to give the command 
*' Forward, March!" He did so, and the men 
went forward. Such an exhibition of training 
among practically raw recruits is on record nowhere 
else. When the line reached the other regiments 
of the brigade, which were halted, the Colonel 
asked a similar question of the regulars, which 
brought a retort from Major Hayes of the brigade 



THE BATTLE OF SAN JUAN 195 

staff, to the effect that they were halted according 
to orders. The orders did not disturb Roosevelt, 
however, and he went on with most of the regi- 
ment and parts of others. The lines were becom- 
ing badly mixed. 

There were advances and halts, but apparently 
throughout the line there was no attempt to use 
the actual battle tactics laid down in the books. 
There was no advance, support or reserves ; no 
advancing by squads or sections. 

On the right along the road the fire was terrific 
and the casualties great. The road itself was 
constantly swept by a stream of bullets. The 
enemy had evidently expected an advance up the 
road, as in the battle of Guasimas. Eventually 
*' L " troop cut the wires and with a ringing cheer 
made a dash and run by the right flank across the 
road and thereafter advanced on the right of it. 
They were again badly cut up. Captain O'Neill 
had been killed some time before, and his body 
was resting in the shrubbery that lined the road. 
The enemy's artillery had opened up again some 
time before, and made a special mark of the troops 
resting on the side of this road. Dead and 
wounded were scattered along it. One wounded 
man was lying parallel to the road with his head 
protected by a tree. A shell burst between him 



196 FUN AND FIGHTING 

and myself, and a piece of the shell struck him. 
He turned and looked toward the Spanish posi- 
tion as though in protest. It did not seem fair to 
hit a man twice. 

We had already passed by numerous guerrillas 
who were sharpshooting in the trees. Their fire, 
coming from the flank and rear, made it difficult 
at times to tell just where the bullets were coming 
from, even after the advance was well on. During 
one of the halts I was with a group that was 
lying down near the road on the right, and had 
disposed myself in the grass as I thought to the 
best advantage. A captain and about fifteen 
men were lying on the right of me. One of the 
latter turned to me and said : 

" You'd better move around, Lieutenant — you're 
lying broadside on." He was not forgetting his 
nautical phrases even in battle. 

On the left of our brigade was the main road 
to Santiago which ran in a direction nearly parallel 
with the road on our imimediate right. Where this 
crossed the second stream (the San Juan river) 
was another particularly warm place. I saw a 
large tree there the next day that bore evidence 
of the storm of bullets that had hit it. Almost 
all the shots had hit the trunk at a height of less 
than ten feet from the ground. The enemy were 



THE BATTLE OF SAN JUAN 197 

firing low on this 1st of June. Two sharpshooters 
were killed out of this tree by our forces. 

The San Juan is a creek of water that bears 
every semblance to particularly dirty dish-water. 
It was water to drink, however, and the men 
stopped to satisfy their thirst, even in the charge, 
and in many cases to fill canteens. A few hundred 
yards beyond the river was the base of Kettle 
Hill. When our forces reached the base the 
Spanish began running from their trenches on the 
hill, falling back on the second ridge. 

One little Spanish bugler boy, wholly demoral- 
ised, ran straight into our lines and was captured. 
Shortly afterwards a flag was raised on the saddle 
back between the two hills and cheered by the 
whole army. 

All the regiments on the right by this time 
were more or less disorganised and mixed up. 
They were straightened out to some extent and 
the advance made on the further line of hills, 
which is practically a continuation of the main 
ridge (San Juan Heights) which makes a curve 
toward Santiago. The captured house was turned 
into a dressing station for the wounded. Only 
those who were near at hand, however, could be 
cared for there, and those who were wounded in 
the advance were left behind on the field, uncared 



198 FUN AND FIGHTING 

for from necessity. The trees on the ground 
which had been won were still full of guerrillas, 
and they made it almost impossible for the sur- 
geons and their assistants to advance to their aid. 
Some of the wounded crawled back to the Agua- i 
dores, where, even when sheltered by the thick ; 
growth of trees on its banks, they were still ex- i 
posed to the fire of sharpshooters. Indeed there i 
were sharpshooters (guerrillas) in these selfsame i 
trees ; and they now fired at will, as the army ', 
was well beyond and the wounded and surgeons 
at their mercy. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 

The men were pretty well scattered and ex- 
hausted by this time, and Colonel Roosevelt had 
to make several abortive attempts before taking 
the second hill. The Spaniards were on the run, 
however, and the battle of San Juan was finished 
at about the same time that Caney was taken. 
The Rough Riders eventually held a sort of 
natural bastion overlooking Santiago, and within 
three hundred yards of the nearest trenches be- 
longing to the defences of the city proper. They 
had advanced even further than this, however. 
The last hill and the city were separated by a 
valley of palms and dense undergrowth about two 
hundred and fifty yards in width. Lieutenant 
Greenway, with a handful of Rough Riders, 
charged up the Santiago road into this forest and 
eventually had to be ordered back. He firmly 
believed then, and perhaps does now, that he 
could have gone right into Santiago. 

The bastion-like hill held on the night of the 

199 



200 FUN AND FIGHTING 

1st by the Rough Riders and two troops of the 
1st Cavalry was the key of the American position, 
and Colonel Roosevelt received orders to hold it 
at all hazards. He promptly set about erecting 
trenches on the slope of the hill toward the city, 
and by morning was in good position to hold it. 
The crest of the ridge was somewhat lower on 
our right. This was intrenched by the other two 
regiments of the brigade, and the line extended 
next day by the regiments of Lawton's division 
as they came up. In this way the Rough Riders 
who entered the battle as the right of the brigade 
now became at its end the left. On their left the 
other brigade of cavalry continued the intrench- 
ments, which were then taken up by the infantry 
of Kent's division. The whole corps eventually 
formed a horseshoe around the city. Day by 
day the intrenchments were improved on both 
American and Spanish sides, even during the 
truce. New cannon were constantly mounted by 
the Spaniards, and new traverses erected by the 
Americans for protection against them. These 
intrenchments were laid out without the aid of 
the engineers, who were occupied in building 
wharfs at Siboney and in improving the roads 
and bridging streams. 
At this time but a small portion of Santiago 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 201 

could be seen, the segment of a roughly drawn 
circle. The houses of importance gave an appear- 
ance of characteristic Spanish picturesqueness, 
being red in colour with white trimmings. Almost 
every other house flew the Red Cross flag, and a 
long main building, in which Hobson was said to 
be confined, was covered with them. Between 
buildings flying the Red Cross flag the enemy 
mounted heavy guns and mortars. It was their 
intention, in case of a bombardment, to allege 
that the Americans had not respected the Red 
Cross flag ; for it would have been necessary to 
fire on these buildings— and were it not necessary 
they were almost sure to be frequently struck by 
accident. 

Over the intrenchments the conical straw hats 
of the Spaniards could be seen, and during the 
truce both sides stood on their intrenchments, or 
sat smoking, watching and commenting on each 
other. The pickets on both sides were within 
shouting distance of each other in the jungle be- 
tween the lines, and there were frequent exchanges 
of fire between them. 

Throughout the 2d of July there was constant 
firing and fighting, more particularly where Law- 
ton was moving onto the line. The 71st New 
York had suffered from the cruelty of being com- 



202 FUN AND FIGHTING 

pcllcd to fight with non-smokeless Springfields 
against smokeless Mausers the previous day, but 
that had been on the left of the line and out of 
sight. The position of the 2d Massachusetts was 
in full view, however, and we could see them and 
the handicap they laboured under. They would 
fire a volley, and then apparently every Span- 
ish gun in sight would pepper at the cloud of 
smoke hanging over them. A better target could 
not be imagined. I joined the surgeon I had 
met the day before in exclaiming that it was 
wicked. 

The palms in front overlooked a good part of 
our lines and they were occupied by guerrillas who 
kept up an incessant sharpshooting. To meet 
them Colonel Roosevelt organised a band of 
thirty picked shots who thereafter made it their 
business to clean out these trees. But until the 
truce on the 3d, shots were continually coming 
into the bastion of the Rough Riders, and men 
were being wounded and killed. 

Nor was the work of the guerrillas confined to 
the front. They were still in trees all over the 
battlefield in rear making matters very uncom- 
fortable for men passing back and forth. Even 
as far back as the emergency hospital at the ford 
of the Aguadores they were still at work. I was 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 203 

sent back with a couple of men to bring up the 
Colt guns on the morning of the 2d and made this 
ford just as a surgeon was killed. A company of 
Infantry deployed as skirmishers was even then 
shooting the impudent sharpshooters out of trees 
not two hundred yards from the ford. At the 
same time Captain Grimes' battery of artillery 
came back from a point on the left from which 
they had been driven by the small-arm fire of the 
enemy. The captain was not in a particularly 
pleasant mood, and the mood was not softened by 
the difficulty he had in making the muddy ford 
with his heavy guns. At the same point I met 
Chaplain Brown, who, having obtained all the 
help possible for the wounded, was now burying 
the dead. He was just about to bury the body 
of Captain O'Neill of " Ours " and say the last 
services of the church over it. Indeed the burying 
of bodies went on for days, it being often difficult 
to locate them. The wounded would crawl for 
protection into some out-of-the way spot and 

I sometimes die there. One of our men was found 
dead sitting at the base of a tree with the picture 

! of his wife and children in his hand. Skeletons 
of both friends and enemies were afterwards found 
on the field— men who had been eaten by the 
vultures. All that was sickening and horrible 



204 FUN AND FIGHTING 

in war was crowded into this one short cam- 
paign. 

I was expected to ''hustle" for some means of 
transporting the Colt guns, and was fortunate in 
meeting Colonel McClernand of General Shafter's 
staff near the house at El Poso. I explained my 
difificulty to him, and he gave me the use of four 
horses belonging to the signal corps which hap- 
pened to be near. We improvised packs and tied 
the guns and their ammunition to them with small 
pieces of rope. 

In looking for rope I went through the adobe 
building at El Poso and found two correspondents 
using the bedding of the dead O'Neill and Lieu- 
tenant Franz. One of them was the correspond- 
ent who had entertained us with his nocturnal 
descriptions of a foreign war. He made the prop- 
osition to me that he should take care of Captain 
O'Neill's bedding, sabre and effects, and when 
through with them turn them over either to corps 
headquarters or to the Division Hospital. I 
gladly assented, as we wanted to send these things 
back to the captain's family. A week later this 
correspondent made his appearance at our regi- 
mental headquarters for the first time since the 
advance to El Poso and calmly informed me that 
he had left the bedding in the building and that 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 205 

if I wanted it I would do well to look out for it 
immediately. His egregious coolness was beyond 
anything save the eloquence of silence. I made 
the necessary arrangements to have the property 
hunted up without a word. It suited his conve- 
nience to again become a guest at our headquarters 
mess. That was all. And it did not suit his con- 
venience to return Captain O'Neill's effects. That 
also was all. 

Further duties took me back to the Division 
Hospital, where I saw what was left for me to see 
of the horrors of war. In the first tent on the 
right were about twenty wounded officers, grim 
and silent. Many of them were Rough Riders. 
They had not had anything to eat since going into 
battle. One of them I thought was Captain Shipp, 
of the brigade staff, an old regimental friend of 
the regular army. Such was not the case, how- 
ever. Shipp had been instantly killed the day 
before at almost the same instant as his friend, 
classmate, and regimental comrade. Smith of 
the loth Cavalry. Their deaths were as brave 
and pathetic as that of Colonel Hamilton of 
the 9th Cavalry. Like the two lOth cavalry- 
men, Colonel Hamilton was exposing himself 
recklessly. His officers begged him to lie 
clown. 



2o6 FUN AND FIGHTING 

" Lie down yourselves," he answered. He was 
killed a moment afterward, and fell into the arms 
of Lieutenant Hartwell and (then) Sergeant Hayes 
of the Rough Riders. 

Some of the wounded were hit in an almost un- 
accountable way. One officer was shot through 
the tongue. *' How it could have happened ? " is 
a question that has puzzled every one. The 
tongue was swelled enormously and he could not 
speak, but he seemed to be in remarkably good 
spirits, and was laughing at his own wounds and 
his ineffectual attempts to make himself under- 
stood. A classmate of mine, Lieutenant Wassell, 
was shot through the nose, mouth, and abdomen 
by the same bullet. He, too, could barely talk, 
but to the extent that he could he devoted him- 
self to our Cuban allies. He was in a frame of 
mind. On the operating table in the next tent 
was a man with his entrails laid open. He was 
covered with blood, and a half-dozen surgeons 
were sewing him together. 

The road from the front to the hospital was 
filled with wounded, crawling, walking, or being 
carried to the hospital. The woods even as far 
back as this point (corps headquarters were also 
here) were filled with sharpshooters. One man 
warned me not to go any further on my return 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 207 

journey, as our own artillery was about to shell the 
woods and drive them out. He declared that a 
sentinel was posted a hundred yards further on to 
stop travel. I went on to find out for myself. 
There was no sentinel, and the woods were not 
shelled. The man's mind had probably been 
affected. 

From the Aguadores to the front the entire 
field was still under fire from the sharpshooters. 
They were now, however, mainly at a distance 
and seldom shot at a moving object. A man at 
a halt, however, would hear a bullet whistle by 
him instantly, if indeed he was not struck. As 
we crossed Bloody Bend a lieutenant of the 3d 
Cavalry was hit, and the Red Cross ambulances 
were being constantly fired into. 

The Colt guns were promptly put into position 
in the trenches. Lieutenant Parker's Gatling guns 
were on the hill, but could not be run into posi- 
tion as the crest of the hill was constantly under 
fire. At this time the relief that went into the 
trenches for day duty had to go in before dawn 
and remain in all day, being relieved after dark. 
No approaches had been made as yet to the trench 
in front of us. When a zigzag approach was 
finally made, a great deal of the element of danger 
was removed, but the men were obliged to crawl 



208 FUN AND FIGHTING 

over each other going in and out. Some parts of 
the trenches, too, were so narrow that it was diffi- 
cult for a particularly large man to pass through 
them without going sidewise. ] 

When food came for the men on the 2d of July- 
it was carried by a concerted rush to the men in 
the trenches by volunteers. In the same manner 
they rushed back together. They were fired at 
viciously, but no one was hurt. Neither was any 
one hurt in the regiment during the changes of 
the reliefs for duty in the trenches, though they 
too were fired at, it being bright moonlight. In 
fact, I saw only one man wounded at such a time. 
This was a trooper of the 9th Cavalry, who ran 
negligently back from the trench without even 
bending over. He made a perfect mark and was 
rewarded for his carelessness (a number of officers 
were calling to him to bend low) by a shot through 
the wrist. 

Rations were now brought to the troops daily, 
but at irregular intervals and in reduced quanti- 
ties. The ration had been reduced by order of 
General Shafter to hard bread, bacon, sugar, and 
coffee. These four components of the ration 
were all the men had until the truce was well 
along. Then they were served with a few beans 
occasionally, and very occasionally, with canned 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 209 

tomatoes. Salt was not included in the ration, 
but the bacon supplied that. Pepper, however, 
was loudly called for on all sides. The human 
animal needs a fiery condiment in the tropics. 
The love of the Mexicans for Chili sauce was ex- 
plained. What rations were served were cooked 
individually by the men. They would have suf- 
fered more during the first two days, but that 
fortunately some provisions were captured from 
the Spanish. 

At first we thought we were lucky to have a 
good supply of drinking water from a well on the 
captured position. But when the body of a dead 
Spaniard was hauled from it two or three days 
after the battle, recourse was had to the dirty water 
of the San Juan River. This was but little better. 
Perhaps it was not as good as the extract of dead 
Spaniard in the well. There were many dead ani- 
mals in the river. Far worse, the daily storms 
washed the refuse from the troops into it. Lit- 
tle or no attempt Avas made to boil the water. 
There was nothing to boil it in. Time was valu- 
able, and the men were constantly suffering from 
thirst. 

Tobacco was missed almost as much as any 
other comfort of civilisation. Nearly every man 
in the regiment smoked, and most of them chewed. 
M 



2IO FUN AND FIGHTING 

Finally tobacco was sent from the depot at Sibo- 
ney to all the troops at the front. The share 
allotted to the Rough Riders awaited them. But 
the tobacco had to be bought. It was a commis- 
sary store, not a ration. And there was no money 
among the men. In this emergency Lieutenant 
Woodbury Kane put up the money, some eighty- 
five dollars, and they finally got their tobacco ; 
but the smoking tobacco Avas unaccompanied by 
cigarette papers or pipes. But few of the men 
had pipes, and how the majority managed to ex- 
tract comfort from the one comfort provided for 
them I know not. Personally I happened to have 
two pipes in my saddle-bags, and they went the 
rounds among some of the officers and probably 
a good many of the men daily. 

This feature of the difficulty concerning com- 
missary stores provided for the troops seems to 
have been generally overlooked. There was a 
large quantity of such stores on the transports, 
and eventually some of them were landed ; but 
they could be sold only. The government owed 
every man at least one month's pay, but by the 
regulations it would not trust the men for the com- 
forts, if not necessities, it had provided. 

The actual hunger was all the harder to bear as 
on the beach at Siboney we had plenty of provi- 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 211 

slons belonging to the regiment. As our shelter 
in the shape of tentage was either at Siboney, 
Daiquiri, or along the road near the camping 
ground after Guasimas, the men were drenched 
daily by the terrific storms, and got dry again the 
next day only in time to be drenched again. The 
ground became water-soaked, now, and gave forth 
a very offensive odour. Night and morning the 
mist rose from it in actual clouds. 

Here the regiment acquired the fevers that laid 
it low little more than two weeks afterwards. 
Added to the discomfort was the uncertainty as to 
the outcome of the campaign. Already the rumour 
of a withdrawal from our position was known to 
the men, and the fact that it was advocated by 
officers of high rank was also known. 

There was uncertainty, too, concerning the out- 
come of the anticipated naval battle. Every one 
knew that the capture of Santiago by assault 
would be attended with frightful loss, and all knew 
as well that it could not be held, even if cap- 
tured, as long as the Spanish fleet remained in 
the harbour. Colonel Roosevelt at this time 
showed one of the most admirable traits of his 
character. 

** ," said he, in a great rage, after coming 

back from a short visit to another officer, " is a 



212 FUN AND FIGHTING 

pessimist. He thinks we are beaten, and ought 
to retreat. Now I am an optimist. I don't care 
what the rest of the army does ; I have received 
orders to hold this hill at all hazards, and the 
Rough Riders are going to stay here if they wipe 
us off the earth." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO {Continued) 

Toward evening a rumour spread throughout 
the line that the enemy was to make a night at- 
tack. Since it has been contended that such an 
attack was made, and with equal emphasis that it 
was not. Certainly there was a furious exchange 
of rifle fire for about twenty minutes, and the 
Spaniards let loose their artillery at us, but with 
little effect. We could see the flashes from the 
fire of our own men and the enemy, and it was the 
most picturesque sight of the campaign. 

The attack, if such it was, however, was not 
made against the strong position held by the 
Rough Riders, and the regiment again demon- 
strated the wonderful state of its discipline by 
promptly ceasing to fire at command. Then it 
became a body of spectators while the other regi- 
ments blazed away. The ''bombs bursting in 
air " and the cannon cracker effect of the rifles gave 
quite a Fourth of July air to the scene, and only 

the enemy's bullets which " phewed " over the 

213 



214 FUN AND FIGHTING 

crest behind which we lay warned us of the serious- 
ness of the occasion. Finally the order was sent 
along the lines to cease firing. It was not prompt- 
ly obeyed. Naturally it was assumed that the 
volunteers were still firing. Out of the depths 
and the darkness below and behind us came a 
stentorian voice shouting; 

*' Cease firing in the ist Volunteer Cavalry." 

No attention was paid to it. The rattle of fire 
to our right still went on. The order was re- 
peated again and again. The owner of the voice 
was losing his temper. Finally a stentorian voice 
replied. It was Colonel Roosevelt's. He too had 
lost his temper. 

''You ass," shouted the Colonel, ''we are not 
firing," 

Perhaps the reply was a trifle stronger than that. 
It is recorded of even Washington that he used 
bad language at Monmouth. At any rate the 
voice ceased. A moment later a captain of the 
regiment on our right walked over the crest and 
ordered his men to cease firing. 

" I am ashamed of you," he shouted to his men. 
*' Why, you're no better than Spaniards. Get out 
of there, every one of you." 

His men laughingly ceased firing and ran back 
from the trench into which they had piled when 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 215 

the firing began. After that we spent a quiet but 
a nervous night, interrupted by a few exchanges 
of fire between the pickets, during which one or 
two of our men were wounded. The strain was 
beginning to tell on the nerves of all, however. 
Men who laughed at the storm of fire on the 
morning of the ist of July now dodged at the 
whistle of a single bullet — only to laugh at them- 
selves sheepishly afterward. 

On the 3d a truce was proclaimed, and the wire- 
less telegraphy of an army soon informed us that 
Captain Dorst had gone into Santiago to demand 
the surrender of the town, and to give warning 
that the women and children would be given 
twenty-four hours to seek places of safety before 
the bombardment began. No one was sorry to 
hear of the truce. The man was a mere fool who 
wished to see a repetition of the ist of July, and 
all knew that if the bombardment failed there 
would be nothing left but an assault on the town 
and a hand-to-hand fight at the intrenchments 
surrounding it and at every barricade erected 
within it. Nor could any one say that he believed 
that the assault would be successful. There were 
seven lines of barbed-wire fence stretched before 
the intrenchments in our front, so it was said. We 
already knew that a single fence was bad enough. 



2i6 FUN AND FIGHTING 

In the afternoon heavy firing was heard at the 
mouth of the harbour. At that distance no doubt 
we heard the reports of only the heavier guns. 
Certainly there did not seem to be enough firing 
to warrant a belief that a serious naval battle was 
on, and no one suspected that such was the case 
until the ''wireless telegraph" brought news of 
the fact. From that time until the definite infor- 
mation came that the Spanish navy was routed 
the whole army was in a state of tense suspense. 
The defeat of the navy meant to every one of us 
a Spanish prison. With our fleet defeated and 
our transports driven away, we would have had 
to surrender or starve. 

The first news that came was that the enemy 
had been beaten, but that several of our ships had 
been sunk and the Colon and some other of the 
Spanish vessels had escaped. About an hour 
afterwards, however, thunders of cheering began 
to roll along the line from the left ; and advancing 
rapidly as the " wireless telegraph " brought the 
welcome news that our ships had escaped unhurt 
and that the Spanish vessels had all been sunk 
with the exception of the Colon, which was sure 
to be captured — and then the clouds in the zenith 
were scattered by the thunders of our own 
cheers. 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 217 

The afternoon of the 3d I spent in making out 
our casualty list for the three days up to the truce. 
This was sent to Division Headquarters direct by 
order of Colonel Baldwin of the loth Cavalry, 
who had become commanding officer of the 
brigade temporarily, during the absence of Colonel 
Wood. The next day Colonel Wood's Adjutant- 
General asked for the report. I explained that 
it had already been sent in. No matter — I must 
submit another. I did. On the next day it was 
again demanded direct by Division Headquarters. 
I sent it in but made a protest in person. I was 
required to furnish but one copy, and neither 
paper, ink, nor time had we to waste on unnecessary 
work. Indeed the only ink I had was a little re- 
maining in a fountain pen given me by Captain 
O'Neill a few days before he was killed. Though 
a truce was on there was no time to waste. No 
one knew how long it would last. The Spaniards 
were mounting heavy guns in plain sight, and 
every moment was needed in the building of 
trenches and traverses. In fact the men worked 
all night that night building bomb proofs for 
shelter during the expected cannonade. 

The night of the 3d of July was a pictur- 
esque one. The palms in our front looked unusu- 
ally beautiful in the moonlight. The figures of 



2i8 FUN AND FIGHTING 

the working men outlined against the sky looked 
almost spectral. Over in the mountains the 
Cubans were burning abandoned blockhouses. 
These made conflagrations so exactly similar that 
they were at first mistaken for signals made by 
the Spaniards to communicate with friends at sea, 
and we wondered if another fleet was at hand. 

From the Spanish lines a rocket rose in the air 
immediately in front of our works, and, bursting, 
sent a spray of gently falling balls of fire into the 
palms between the lines. It was a signal recalling 
the guerrilla denizens of the trees into their lines. 
These lines had been weakened by the withdrawal 
of the marines who had gone with the fleet. But 
reinforcements had come in from the interior, and 
the enemy was even stronger than before. The 
Cubans had been charged with the task of keep- 
ing out these reinforcements. There were three 
roads by which they might come. The Cubans 
guarded two, so the Spaniards came in by the 
third. In this case the Cubans did not do things 
by halves, but by two-thirds. 

The tired men were worked to exhaustion. A 
weary private staggered back from the trenches 
and dropped on his solitary blanket at one of the 
reliefs of the working party. The sergeant of his 
troop was just then making an additional detail. 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 219 

He called to the man, who, by the way, was one of 
the so-called " dudes " from New York. 

'' Why, I have just been relieved, and was prom- 
ised an hour's sleep," protested the tired fellow. 

" Doesn't make any difference," replied the ser- 
geant, and the man had to get up. 

During this period of truce two Gatling guns 
were promptly mounted in the trenches, the range 
of every battery and intrenchment of the enemy 
accurately determined, and lines of fire arranged 
so that both machine guns and rifles could be 
fired with the least exposure of person. The 
Spaniards were equally busy, and the second 
morning after the declaration of the truce we saw 
a battery erected containing one immense gun 
that flanked the whole line of intrenchments held 
by the cavalry division. Traverses were promptly 
made to protect the line from this gun, and one 
was made by Captain Jenkins tv/enty feet thick. 
The whole line v/as worried about this gun, which 
looked so frowningly at us, and eventually the 
men were informed of the plan made to take care 
of it. A regiment of regular infantry was to sur- 
prise and capture the gun before it could do any 
serious damage. The regiment had already been 
moved within striking distance of the gun. 

The 4th of July on San Juan Heights was 



k 



320 FUN AND FIGHTING 

probably the quietest any of us ever saw. Amer- 
icans with " nerves " would have found the in- 
trenchments before Santiago a delightful place in 
which to spend the day. It was as silent as an 
empty church, and the American small boy was 
far, far away. There were neither fire-crackers 
nor fire-works. We had no picnics, no lemonade, 
no ice-cream. A few shots were fired far in our 
rear at guerrillas. An order was read from Gen- 
eral Miles declaring that he would soon be with 
us with reinforcements, and assuring us that, no 
matter what the outcome, the campaign had been 
a glorious one for American arms. But that last 
sentence sounded rather dubious. On account of 
this enthusiastic telegram, which left us wonder- 
ing how soon we would be herded in the Morro, 
the regimental bands were ordered to play na- 
tional airs. The order was obeyed by the bugle 
corps of one regiment only. That played, dis- 
piritedly, a march. We were never herded together 
in the Morro, however. The Morro never comes. 
In obedience to a generally expressed wish the 
light artillery had now been placed on a hill far in 
our rear in preparation for the forthcoming bom- 
bardment. No one wanted it around. It also 
used non-smokeless powder and was simply a 
" mark." 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 221 

Our dynamite gun was equally abhorred. It 
had to be placed by itself in a secluded corner of 
the line and its ammunition buried. It had fired 
four shots in the battle of San Juan. One hit the 
limb of a tree under which it was placed and 
nearly annihilated both gun and gunners. The 
next shell got lodged in the receiving chamber, 
and it was out of the fight for some days. A 
small battery of mortars had been put in position 
on the right of our brigade. It was largely minus 
in implements, and its gunners had to guess at 
the charge of powder they would have to use. 
The battery of Hotchkiss guns was short of lan- 
yards, and the only artillery that could be looked 
upon favourably were our own Colt guns and the 
Gatlings. The siege guns were still on board 
ship— and these were the only guns that would 
have been of material service. A siege without 
siege guns was the logical climax of a battle with- 
out tactics and a campaign without strategy. 

In the meantime it had been discovered by 
Colonel Roosevelt that the road to Santiago was 
defended but partially, and he obtained permis- 
sion to erect a small redoubt upon it and supply 
it with Rough Riders. In this way it happened 
that most of the deserters who came from the 
enemy came to our regiment. They were a piti- 



222 FUN AND FIGHTING 

ful looking lot and brought with them tales of 
misery. They were not only getting half rations 
but insufficient supplies of water. The troops 
had not been paid in ages, and the volunteers ; 
from the city had declined to fight any longer. 

The women and children, and the lame, halt, 
blind and sick of the men of Santiago now began 
to move out of the city in a long stream of misery. 
They proceeded on the Caney road, where some 
effort was made to feed and protect them. The 
miserable condition of the women suggested the 
plight of poor Frangoise in Zola's fine sneer at 
war, '' The Attack on the Mill." What delight 
could they get from the cry of "Victory" in 
either army ? What right was there in this or- 
ganised murder. And what queer ideas of life 
must have been put into the little heads of the half- 
starved children who toddled along at their sides? 
Food was as hen's teeth. The army was already 
beginning to suffer from the fever. Men were 
being carried back from the trenches with a tem- 
perature of 105 and 106 degrees. The surgeons 
themselves were coming down with it. Colonel 
Roosevelt saw what was about to happen, and 
sent me back to Siboney and Daiquiri for extra 
food supplies. Just before starting I noticed one 
of those queer little happenings that punctuate 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 223 

the general misery of war. Woodbury Kane, club 
man and gentleman of leisure, was sitting on a 
small rock. He looked as well groomed as pos- 
sible in his dirty uniform, and his fine, aristocratic 
features were lighted with joy. In his left hand 
he held a tiny tin case oi pate de fois gras, which 
he was eating with the blade of a penknife in place 
of a fork. A can oipat^ de fois gras on a battle- 
i field where hardtack was at a decided premium ! 
' He explained that one of his men had found it on 
the road. Naturally it went to the representative 
club man. 

I journeyed towards the rear with a strong 
letter from Colonel Roosevelt, asking for transpor- 
tation and setting forth the necessity of it for the 
health of his command. At division headquarters 
I made a stirring appeal and got one waggon. A.t 
corps headquarters I appeared before the com- 
manding officer and his staff and made another 
eloquent appeal. General Shafter was reclining 
on a camp bed while a surgeon was soothing his 
gouty foot. He was discussing plans with his 
staff and dictating orders. He seemed to want to 
discuss me with the first syllable omitted. 

" You are not going to take any tents to the 
front are you ? " he asked in a half roar. 

" No, sir," I answered with exact truthfulness. 



L 



224 FUN AND FIGHTING 

There was not a tent in the command. I got an 
order on the quartermaster at Daiquiri for two 
teams and went on my way rejoicing. 

An hour and a half later I reached the camp we 
had vacated before marching to El Paso. Three 
of our men were there as a guard. I had the camp 
equipage loaded on the waggon and started it and 
the three men back to the front at once. Then 
with my escort of two men I proceeded to Si- 
boney. About half way my men suddenly jumped 
to either side of the road and brought their guns 
to a ready. Fifty yards in front two other men 
were doing the same thing. A glance showed 
that all were friends, and we went on. The other 
party proved to be a sergeant and his guard, escort- 
ing the prisoners who were to be traded for Lieu- 
tenant Hobson. They were just then in a pre- 
dicament. 

One of the prisoners, an old grey-haired man, 
was sick. Moreover he was raving crazy. I asked 
them if he was hungry. No, was the reply. He 
had declined food for two days. The other pris- 
oners had carried him thus far ; but it had been 
exhausting work, and the sergeant had orders to 
be at corps headquarters at nightfall. Just then 
one of his men discovered an old wheelbarrow. 
I asked the Spanish lieutenant who was to be ex- 



THE SIEGE OF SANTIAGO 225 

changed for Hobson if he had any objections to 
the man's being carried in this primitive convey- 
ance. He saluted me and said he had not. They 
went on, the lieutenant again saluting very po- 
litely. At Siboney we stopped with some of the 
wounded of our regiment for the night. 
15 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE FALL OF SANTIAGO 

I WAS instructed to bring forward all the mail 
for the regiment I could obtain, and had an inter- 
view that evening with the postmaster, who had 
moved his office from Daiquiri to Siboney. He 
explained that he had a waggon-load of mail at 
Daiquiri for which he could not obtain transpor- 
tation to Siboney. He agreed if I would bring 
this mail to Siboney that he would put his clerks 
at work specially on our mail then at Siboney, as 
well as that in the waggon-load at Daiquiri, so that 
our regiment could get quite all that was coming 
to it. I agreed, of course. 

At Siboney there were two regiments of volun- 
teers on guard, — Michigan regiments. The camp 
of our men was quite near the shore, and at high 
tide the waves nearly washed into it. To the east 
were the quartermaster's and commissary's store- 
houses and tents, and to the west the general hos- 
pital tents. In the offing lay the transports and 

hospital ships. The engineers were constructing 
226 



THE FALL OF SANTIAGO 227 

a pier. In the meantime troops and provisions 
were being landed through the surf. Naked men 
waded out to the boats and carried the stores 
ashore. It was a picture for an artist. In fact 
there were three pictures at Siboney worthy of any 
brush. One was the scene the night before the 
battle of Guasimas, with the bivouac of the yet 
untried troops illuminated by the camp fires and 
searchlights of the ships. The second, the one 
just mentioned ; and the third, the burning of Si- 
boney, as seen from the ships. The dirty, disease- 
breeding little town has achieved a place in history 
more important than it deserved. 

That night the beach crabs crawled over us. 
They are sand-coloured and disgusting, but not so 
horrible as the blood-red speckled land crabs that 
joined the vultures in disfiguring the dead. Cuba 
has had its St. Patrick, and is free from snakes, 
but it needs several other saints to make the island 
a pleasant abiding place. 

The next morning I went to Daiquiri over the 
road along which we had advanced to Siboney. 
On the previous trip it had been deserted save by 
troops. Now it was more or less filled with jour- 
neying Cubans. Men, women, and children, all 
saluted after the manner of our soldiers. They 
had learned the American greeting, ** Good morn- 



228 FUN AND FIGHTING 

ing," also, and this they used whether it was morn- 
ing, noon, or night. They had also returned to 
their deserted huts in the cocoanut groves. 

At Daiquiri there was no guard save one or two 
small naval vessels, and a Spanish Marion could 
have made himself immortal by trotting in and 
destroying the stores and transportation collected 
there. Indeed there had been quite an amount of 
apprehension at the place, and the day before the 
naval guard had spent the afternoon shelling the 
hills on account of the supposed presence of lurk- 
ing Spaniards. There were plenty of mules at 
Daiquiri, and plenty of waggons, but the latter were 
as yet '* knocked down," as a freight clerk would 
say. I presented my order to the officer in charge. 
It did not please him, and he looked it over for a 
long time. I waited in patient amusement. I 
knew he could not get around it. I knew also 
that he did not want to obey it. I knew also that 
he was trying to think up an excuse for not obey- 
ing it, which I knew he could not find. He did 
the next best thing, however. He made me wait 
until the next day. 

In the meantime I tried to *' jolly" Captain 
Ramsey of the Commissary Department out of 
some potatoes or onions. He was an old West 
Point friend and willing to do anything he could 



THE FALL OF SANTIAGO 229 

to aid me, but the extent of his ability was twelve 
pounds of half-rotten potatoes. Afterwards I 
went down to the pier with him where a boat was 
waiting to take him out to one of the ships he 
was unloading. Just as his men pushed off a very- 
young and excited man, in a painfully new uniform, 
rushed down the pier. 

" Hold on a minute," shouted the newcomer. 
*' Say, I want to go out to one of the naval vessels.'* 

" Do you ? " asked Ramsey, with a tantalising 
grin, while his men continued to pull away. And 
then Ramsey sat down in the stern and looked 
vacantly out to sea. 

The young man was one of the many staff oflfi- 
cers appointed through influence. 

" I belong to General Shafter's staff," he stam- 
mered to me. " I am sent down here to find out 
what the firing meant yesterday. What shall I 
do?" 

A civilian was standing on the dock a few feet 
away. He beckoned to me, and when I went to 
him told me a boat was coming to take him off in 
a few minutes and he would ferry the adolescent 
captain. I informed the young man, and he ex- 
pressed his thanks and saluted me as feelingly as 
though he did not rank me by a whole grade. 
There is nothing like helping superiors along in 



230 FUN AND FIGHTING 

their difficulties. I speak from a large and varied 
experience. 

Then I hunted up the sole representative of the 
post-office. He was sick with the yellow fever and 
was being cared for by a big jovial, helpful man 
who proved to be the mayor of St. Augustine, 
Florida. The latter procured the keys to the post- 
office shed and agreed to stand by when I was 
ready to load up the next day. After supper I 
called at Ramsey's tent again and found the head 
of the Quartermaster's Department there again. 
He had been brooding over that order of mine. 

'' How many loads have you got in your camp 
here ? " he asked. 

" One," I answered, carelessly. 

" Well what do you want of two waggons then ? " 
he asked. 

I had a perfect right to tell him it was none of 
his business, but my sympathies with the poor 
postmaster at Siboney (who by the way died there 
of yellow fever about a week later), who w^as hin- 
dered in supplying the troops with their mail by 
the churHshness of this man, tempted me to let 
him go on. 

" I have another load at Siboney," I replied. 

He thought he had me then. 

" Do you mean to say you are going to take a 



THE FALL OF SANTIAGO 231 
waggon empty from here to Siboney ? " he asked 

angrily. 

'' Oh, no," I answered. " I am going to take 

the mail from here to Siboney in the other wag- 

»» 
gon. 

*' Let me see that order again," he demanded, 
turning red in the face. 

I gave it to him. He read it several times. 
Then he handed it back with the remark : 

" Well, I can't help it,'' and walked away. I 
knew he could not help it. But he got even to 
the greatest extent possible by giving me but four- 
mule teams instead of six-mule teams and making 
the drivers carry a good third of the weight capac- 
ity of the waggons in grain for the mules. In 
addition I got the weakest mules in the corral, one 
team being hardly larger than pack mules. 

The civilian reader will probably wonder at such 
childishness as this man displayed. The ex- 
perienced government official will recognise in it 
an old acquaintance-official and sometimes per- 
sonal jealousy. Just what started the quarrel be- 
tween the postmaster and the quartermaster I of 
course do not know. But our regiment got its 
mail, even though it was from a month to six 

weeks old. 

Colonel Roosevelt had given me money to buy 



232 FUN AND FIGHTING 

commissaries for the men. I invested it in lime j uice 
and such delicacies as I could obtain. Major (later 
Lieutenant-Colonel Brodie) also contributed sev- 
eral boxes of lime juice. I added what money I 
had and got trusted for a few hundred pounds of 
beans, which I was not to pay for provided the 
regiment made up the amount by not drawing full 
rations to that extent. Inasmuch as we had been 
on short rations for some time the beans might 
have been considered made up already. At Si- 
boney I loaded up the extra waggon with rations 
which had been left behind by the regiment and 
proceeded to the front. 

On the way we passed a continuous stream of 
refugees who were now coming out of Santiago 
by the road on which we had advanced. They 
were a sorry looking lot. Some rode in carriages 
and some in waggons returning from carrying 
rations and ammunition to the troops on the line. 
All carried such possessions as they could. Wo- 
men of apparent refinement wearing silk dresses 
and diamonds struggled along with worn-out 
shoes, carrying children. Some led consumptive 
looking mules. Others drove goats and pigs. 
Chickens, dogs and parrots passed by with the 
human stream of unfortunates. The people were 
human wisps in the path of the conqueror, but 



THE FALL OF SANTIAGO 233 

their weary looking faces did not show that they 
were rejoiced even to escape with their lives. 

The truce was still on when we arrived at the 
front, and it was now apparent to all that the city 
would surrender after a sufficient amount of delay 
and negotiation, which must accompany everything 
a Spaniard does, from mending a pair of shoes to 
overturning a dynasty. All along the line our 
troops had now become " cave dwellers," or, to 
speak more correctly, '' bomb-proof dwellers." 
Day by day the American forces were creeping 
nearer to the town. The line of intrenchments 
occupied by Spaniards one day would be within 
the American lines the next, and we were being 
constantly warned from headquarters not to fire 
to the right of, or to the left of, certain objects, 
in order that we might not fire upon our comrades. 
It was, however, tacitly understood that there 
would be at least a make-believe bombardment 
and resistance before the capitulation. Such 
proved to be the case. Late in the afternoon of 
the loth of July and on the morning of the nth 
the Spanish batteries opened fire and continued it 
for a few hours. They were replied to principally 
by the artillery of the American army, and it was 
an unexciting affair on both sides, though the 
Spanish guns were practically silenced on both 



234 FUN AND FIGHTING 

days. On the 15th the Spanish General Toral 
announced his willingness to capitulate, and on 
the 17th the 9th regular infantry and headquarters 
of the 5th Corps entered the city and took posses- 
sion of it. 

The Rough Riders were now removed to a 
healthier camp in the foot-hills, but the germs of 
the fever were already at work, and it was soon a 
regiment of sick men. Colonel Roosevelt was 
prompt to advise, if not demand, that not only the 
regiment but the entire army should be removed 
to the United States. On the 7th of August or- 
ders for the return were received. They boarded 
the transport Miami at Santiago, and on the 15th 
landed at Montauk, L. I., where they were rejoined 
by the four troops that had been left behind at 
Tampa. Even the latter had fallen victims to the 
heat and camp fevers, and the new camp of the 
regiment was practically an extensive hospital. 

The regiment was mustered out of the service 
on the 13th of September, 1898, one week and 
four months from the arrival of the first contingent 
at San Antonio. The men were given transpor- 
tation to their homes, but did not get the two 
months' pay given to all other volunteer regiments. 
Before disbanding a regimental organisation was 
formed, of which Colonel Brodie was elected Presi- 



THE FALL OF SANTIAGO 335 

dent. Thus ended the career of the most unique 
and possibly the shortest lived regiment ever 
raised by a nation. It was the first to respond to 
the President's appeal for volunteers and the first 
to relieve the government of the expense of main- 
taining it. True to the traditions of American 
volunteers the members of the regiment returned 
quietly to the pursuits of peace after a short frolic 
in New York and other Eastern cities. 

A few of the officers and some of the men have 
since joined other regiments for service in the 
Philippines. A number have died since the war 
from the effects of the fever acquired in Cuba ; 
while nearly all have been sick to a greater or less 
extent. Of the two conspicuous members of the 
regiment one has become Governor of New York 
and the other Governor-General of Santiago. 



CHAPTER XX 

ON A HORROR SHIP 

The sick and wounded of the various regiments 
were sent back to the United States some time 
before the return of the expedition. A number of 
Rough Riders returned on one of two transports 
which were later called by the press of the coun- 
try " Horror Ships.'* I was one of the Rough 
Riders to return on the Seneca, having been 
taken sick a few days before the surrender. A 
letter from Colonel Roosevelt got me transporta- 
tion on the best of these transports, as it was con- 
sidered, and an introduction to the captain of the 
boat. 

A few officers, sick and wounded, were already 
on board when I joined. We lay off Siboney for 
a few days while others, and far too many, officers 
and men were taken on board and started for the 
North. We expected to sail for Key West or 
Tampa, but were ordered to Newport News just 
before sailing. 

My first effort on board was to get clean, and 
236 



ON A HORROR SHIP 237 

nothing ever before seemed so welcome to me 
as the Seneca's bath-room. I had lost about 
seventy pounds in weight and was a comparative 
skeleton. I did not then attribute my condition 
to the incipiency of the fever but supposed it to 
be due to heat prostration. 

From the ship we saw the picturesque burning 
of Siboney, where nearly every building was de- 
stroyed. Yellow fever had now appeared in its 
worst form, and there were many cases in the 
hospital on shore, with more arriving constantly. 

From the ship we heard the short bombardment 
of Santiago, and knew that the city was doomed. 

The ship carried not only sick and wounded but 
a number of newspaper correspondents and nearly 
all the representatives of foreign governments, 
naval and military. I shared my stateroom with 
the Japanese naval attache. He was a good- 
natured little fellow, with the most wonderful 
ability to sleep I have ever seen in any man. 
Occasionally he worked on his maps and report to 
his government ; but the vast majority of the 
time, morning, noon, and night, he was sleeping. 

Two young contract doctors had charge of the 
ship and its human freight, and for some reason 
they were very poorly equipped with medicines. 
No dainties for the wounded men had been pro- 



238 FUN AND FIGHTING 

vided until Miss Jennings (I think I have the name 
correctly) of the Red Cross Society came aboard. 
She discovered the state of affairs just before we 
started and got a supply of beef-tea and a few 
other things of the kind from the hospital ship. 
She was the only woman aboard save Mrs. Scovil, 
the wife of the New York World correspondent. 

Miss Jennings was one of the American women 
who, like Miss Clara Barton, Miss Wheeler, Miss 
Chanler and Miss Gardiner, did so much to alle- 
viate the awful misery of war. If they are all as 
worthy of the crown of an angel (and no doubt 
they are) as Miss Jennings, the nation should be 
prouder of them than it is of Its soldiers. The 
very sight of these clean intelligent American 
women was a precious breath of the atmosphere of 
home in itself. Poor Miss Jennings slaved all 
day and much of the night over the sick and 
wounded, and slept at night wrapped in a shawl 
on the seats in the dining salon, surrounded by 
sleeping men. Nominally, I believe, she shared 
the cabin of Mrs. Scovil, but the latter was sick 
throughout the journey, also. 

The two doctors were Inexperienced, and mat- 
ters would have been much worse than they were 
had it not been for Captain Dowdy of the regular 
army. He was one of the sick, and, completely 



ON A HORROR SHIP 239 

used up, was going back to be retired. He was 
weak and as thin as a rail, but had still sufficient 
energy left to help look after the welfare of the 
enlisted men on board and contend with the ship's 
officers for such comforts as he could obtain for 
them. Almost without exception these ship's 
officers were as disagreeable as they had it in their 
power to be. 

The food on board was fairly good for the first 
two days, but after that it was horrible and, what 
was worse, horribly cooked. The drinking water 
got low, and as it came from the faucet was heated 
almost to the boiling point and as red as iron rust. 
I discovered that the steward had a supply of dis- 
tilled water for the use of the ship's officers, and 
by the proper use of the coin of the realm I was 
permitted to drink of it. How many others had 
the same opportunity I do not know. Many, who 
could afford the prices asked, drank practically 
nothing but ApoUinaris as long as the supply 
lasted. 

The lower decks, where the sick and wounded 
men lay, became foul beyond description, and the 
insufficient toilet rooms were awash with dirty 
water. A number of cases of yellow fever were 
reported by the doctors, and one of these slept on 
deck. The time of those who could sit up was 



240 FUN AND FIGHTING 

passed between dodging yellow fever cases and 
playing poker. 

At Newport News we all received a bitter dis- 
appointment. We were not allowed to land, not 
even taken into quarantine. On the contrary we 
had to lie out in the harbour until orders were 
received from Washington to proceed to New 
York. We did have the opportunity to take on 
supplies, however. They were thrown to us from 
a small boat, as actual contact with the vessel was 
prohibited. Major English of General Wheeler's 
staff, one of the sick, was probably the most keenly 
disappointed man on board. His wife had gone 
to Key West to meet him. Learning of the new 
destination of the boat she had come on to New- 
port News and had now to go on to New York. 
She came out in a small boat which lay about 
twenty yards off the ship while she and her hus- 
band exchanged greetings, not very privately as 
may be imagined. 

On we went to New York, where at least and at 
last we were welcome and welcomed. We were 
promptly boarded by Dr. Doty of the Health De- 
partment and John W. Keller of the Commission 
of Charities and Correction, and after that there 
was nothing too good for us. The wounded and 
very sick were at once transferred to New York 



ON A HORROR SHIP 241 

hospitals, and the rest of us were taken to Hoff- 
man's Island and put in quarantine. 

For two days I had been feeling worse and that 
night came down with the fever. The next day I 
was transferred to the hospital at Ft. Hamilton, 
and went later to a private hospital. For twenty- 
eight days I was sick and during part of them lay 
between life and death. For nearly a year after- 
wards I suffered with relapses, and such I hear is 
the experience of almost all others. 

Before we left the Seneca we presented Miss 
Jennings with a testimonial acknowledging our 
appreciation of her services. She afterwards pre- 
ferred charges against the officers of the ship, and 
an investigation was made which failed to locate 
the blame either for her overcrowded condition or 
her insufficient supplies of food, water and medi- 
cines. 



In the foregoing pages the writer has attempted 
to give a circumstantial story of the Rough Riders 
rather than a history of the campaign or a military 
essay upon it. He has tried, however, to be accu- 
rate ; and if he has made any mistakes they are 
not vital ones. Writing from the standpoint of a 
Rough Rider he has naturally hit a head or two in 



242 FUN AND FIGHTING 

the ranks of the regular army, but that wonderful 
little regular army of the United States has no 
greater admirer than he is. '' May its tribe in- 
crease '* and remain increased, with quick promo- 
tion for every one. And to paraphrase the words 
of Grant, " let us keep the army and politics, in 
the future, forever separate." 



THE END. 






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